


Staying an Omega

by Elphen



Series: The (in)significance of gender [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alpha Mycroft, Alpha Sherlock, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Artificial Womb, BAMF John, Beta Sarah, Caring John, Caring Sherlock, Hormonal imbalance, Insecure Sherlock, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Omega John, Omega Molly, Omega Mrs. Hudson, Omega Verse, Possessive Sherlock, Protective John, Protective Sherlock, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-03-26 12:52:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 64,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3851659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elphen/pseuds/Elphen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the events of John’s unwilling change from Beta to Omega by Moriarty and his bonding with Sherlock, both Alpha and new Omega expects a quiet time where they settle into their new status as a bonded couple but it’s not going to be that simple.<br/>John faces new trials due to his change of status, not the least of which is his pregnancy. As he battles them as well as an unknown foe with help from Sherlock, the detective discovers that the chemicals injected into John might not be quite as stable as they had appeared to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The new status quo?

**Author's Note:**

> So...with a bit of trepidation, I present to you the sequel to Becoming an Omega. I have been going back and forth on doing one but with all the people asking for one, I caved when I had worked out a proper story for the sequel.  
> Still, as it's my first sequel, I am worried about how it will be received.
> 
> No betas or britpickers (apart from the lovely TheMadKatter13 who gave the first chapter a lookover), mistakes are all mine

When they first returned home to Baker Street, it very much looked like things would go back to normal. Or rather, back to the normal they had had before the whole thing happened.

John supposed he should be glad of that, really. It meant that some things were unchangeable and he was going to need something constant.

The truth was, however, that he hadn’t minded the changes to Sherlock’s behaviour, apart from the unreasonable possessiveness, so much for the behaviour itself but for the perceived reasons for it. Granted, the macho Alpha behaviour he really could have done without but that pissed him off with everyone, not just Sherlock.

The very affectionate, touch-craving Sherlock Holmes John had known for the days his Heat had lasted seemed to have gone as soon as they left the building where they’d been holed up. There had been no overtly possessive gestures, no casual touches or otherwise displays of affection. The whole cab drive back home had been spent sitting as they always did and the silence had been deafening.

John told himself that it really wasn’t that surprising and that it was preferable to the mess they’d had before where Sherlock would oscillate between his old behaviour and clingy, possessive Alpha. Consistency and all that. Nevertheless, it did make his heart sink a little; after everything that had happened, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to go back to the way things were. Nobody wanted to take a step backwards.

The feeling wasn’t diminished in the least when they did get home and John was left to carry the bag with the sparse belongings that had been brought to them during his Heat while Sherlock rushed in through the front door and up the stairs to their flat.

“Need any help there, mate?” the cabbie called out the window. John turned to him, ready to snap at him that he could very well carry _one_ bag up to his own bloody flat, thank-you-very-much, then realized that the man had raised an eyebrow yet was smiling. He relaxed; the man was more than likely just trying to be kind, regardless of gender.

“No, thanks, I’m good,” he answered, offering a small smile as he dug out a few notes and paid. “Not the first time this has happened.” In fact, he ought to be used to it by this point.

The cabbie grinned back at him. “Tell me about it. Alphas, eh? Who’d want them?” He gave a wave as he signalled and pulled out at the same time, making the car behind him step on the brake and honk the horn.

“Who indeed?” John echoed as he made his way into his home, noting briefly that at least Mrs. Hudson wasn’t at home at the moment as he trudged up the stairs. He did not have the reserves for her chatter right then, no matter how much he adored her.

Not to his great surprise, the door to the flat was wide open. He went in and looked around but there was no sign of Sherlock, though the coat had been thrown over a chair.

“Probably holed up in his room, furiously texting Greg about cases,” he muttered as he put the bag down, taking another look at the mess that was their flat. “Well, then, best get on with something practical.”

Just then, Sherlock burst into the living room, coming not, as John would have assumed, from his own room but from the stairs that led up to the new Omega’s room.

To add to the surprise, he held something in his arms. It took John a moment to recognize it for what it was; a collection of his jumpers and shirts. His confusion and suspicion spiked.

“Sherlock, what the blazes are you playing at?”

Sherlock stopped and levelled his patented ‘don’t be stupid’ look at his partner. “What does it look like? I’m moving your things.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Because I have no intention of letting my mate sleep anywhere other than beside me,” the Alpha replied shortly as if that was the most logical thing in the world, which it likely was if you were born into thinking of such things. The doctor most certainly wasn’t, however.

“And that includes pilfering all my clothes, does it?”

“It would be rather a waste of time for you to go up there every morning in order to fetch clean clothes. I am merely being expedient.” With that, he continued on his way into his own room.

John could help neither the smile nor the slight sense of relief; he’d known the overtly affectionate side of Sherlock had been pushed to the fore by the pheromones and the Heat but to see that, even though he seemed more like his normal, rational self now that it had passed and they’d bonded, the sentiment was still there in its own Sherlockian way was comforting.

Idly he touched the place where his bond mark now was; the marks of six upper and six lower teeth piercing through and leaving indentations and raised, scarred skin still felt odd to touch but it was also a reminder to him that he, John Watson, really had bonded with Sherlock Holmes. It was reassuring in its irrefutability.

It was still sore, too, though, so he pulled his hand away and walked towards Sherlock’s room. Inside he saw his mate busying himself with putting John’s clothes away with his own. The doctor noted that almost his entire wardrobe was heaped onto the bed already.

Foregoing mentioning he could have done that himself, John asked a question. “So, that leaves a room unoccupied. What are we going to use the extra space for? A lab?”

Sherlock didn’t bother stopping his work or even looking up from it. “The placement, space and airing conditions of that room makes it entirely unsuitable for conducting experiments with any sort of accuracy or reliability,” he replied, holding up a plaid shirt that John enjoyed wearing before sniffing disdainfully and throwing it on the floor. “Besides, we’ll need a room for when the child is old enough to sleep on its own which your old room would be eminently suited for. Granted, that is going to be a while from now but it never hurt to be prepared.”

“Wait, what? What child?”

Finally Sherlock stopped what he was doing and fixed his partner with a look of long-suffering patience. “The _child_. Our child, John. The one you’re carrying.”

John started laughing at that but stopped once he saw that the Alpha was quite serious. “You’re not joking. Sherlock, I’ve had an artificial womb inserted into me which before this whole debacle I’d have deemed impossible, too. Shortly before my Heat hit, I might add. There is no way that it could be fully functional in time for my Heat and so the likelihood of actually conceiving this time around is almost nonexistent.”

“That would be true,” the consulting detective countered, “if it was actually inserted into you. Or rather, it was but not just before your Heat. From the notes I read you were most likely given an ‘artificial’ womb when you were first injected that was left to grow and attach as hormones started flooding your system. Your...mock Heat was, I am fairly certain,” and here he made an expression indicating his displeasure at estimations, “the point where it had grown enough to start to attach, a likely contributing factor to the mock Heat.” He took a breath.

“Then why wasn’t it rejected by my system before then?” John interrupted before Sherlock had a chance to continue.

“Why wasn’t the attempt to override your blood rejected by your body?” Sherlock had the cheek to quirk an eyebrow and smirk slightly. “Betas have weaker blood and they don’t produce that many hormones, at least compared to Alphas and Omegas, which is why they find teenage life relatively easy. The flood of hormones in your system overrode the coding telling your body that the uterus was a foreign body that it needed to disperse of and helped it grow and eventually attach.”

“But Moriarty said that he’d only just given me the uterus when my Heat was...” John trailed off as something occurred to him. “Why the hell did I believe him?” he asked, sounding angry with himself. “Come to that, why do we believe the notes?”

The Alpha must have sensed the distress in his mate’s voice because he walked over and put his arms around him a bit awkwardly, which John found endearing and comforting.

“We believe the notes,” he replied in a gentle tone, “because they hold data we can verify and compare. The physical and chemical data doesn’t lie, John.” He leant down and, still somewhat hesitant, placed a soft kiss on the other’s temple. “Besides, your scent is a dead giveaway in and of itself.”

“My scent? I smell pregnant now?” The idea that you could actually smell such things in another’s scent still seemed utterly absurd at times to the doctor, however much he had been presented with the proof lately.

Sherlock merely hummed in acknowledgement but he was smiling slightly; that special, soft half-smile of his that always made John’s heart skip a beat or two which the bastard was probably aware of.

“It’s the overtones in your scent,” the detective said after a moment of silence, answering the question John wasn’t asking out loud. “There’s a hint of something, faint but noticeable, much like cosmetic companies add components to perfume in order to nuance their products.”

“And it’s not just because I’m no longer an unbonded, Heat-smothered Alpha magnet?” the Omega said with a smile as he pulled out of the embrace. He needed to see what other perfectly serviceable items of clothing had been discarded and save them.

Sherlock didn’t answer but then John hadn’t expected him to. In fact, when he looked over his shoulder, the Alpha was already gone.

John just shrugged, no longer feeling insecure as he had on the way home, and continued rescuing the clothes on the floor; they weren’t going merely because they weren’t to Sherlock’s liking. They might be bonded now and that would mean Sherlock had more of a say in his life – more than he already had – whether John liked it or not but he wasn’t going to decide what the Omega should wear.

It wasn’t long before he heard the heavy rustle of fabric falling onto a surface and he turned to see his mate standing in front of the bed, the remainder of his wardrobe having been dumped upon it. He went to sort through and fold the new batch but was grabbed and dragged out into the living room where he was deposited on the sofa. Sherlock then decided to flop down on it himself and made himself comfortable on top of John, a good deal of his upper body cushioned by the other man’s thighs.

“Any Alpha should be able to scent it when the egg of the Omega is fertilized and begins its transformation into an embryo. The process adds its very own, subtle yet distinct notes to the Omega’s scent.” The break in conversation was another comforting staple of life with Sherlock Holmes.

The comment sparked another question. “That’s another thing,” John began, catching his mate’s eye from the position that was still very novel and a little strange in its novelty. “A uterus developing is one thing but what about the ovaries? They might be connected to the uterus but it’s no guarantee that there will be viable eggs in them to drop down when the Heat comes. That and if the uterus was already in place, attaching by the time of the mock Heat, what the blooming hell was the point of kidnapping me the second time?”

“To make sure,” came the prompt answer. “To see whether the attachment had been successful and administer the final injections that would make the ovaries send an egg down to be fertilized.”

“You can’t know that. Even with the notes, that’s conjecture at best, Sherlock.”

The Alpha cocked an eyebrow in a way that indicated that if John chose to be stupid on this matter, Sherlock wasn’t going to bother correcting him. He sat up briefly to grab John’s laptop off the precarious pile of paper on the table it was resting on but instead of opening it himself, he handed it to the Omega who took it without question. Giving a brief smile, he then snuggled back down to where his head was resting on one of John’s thigh and his shins were dangling over the edge of the armrest. Out from his trouser pocket he dug the replacement phone Mycroft had been kind enough to gift John with when they’d emerged from the room at the end of the Heat. The fact that it was Sherlock carrying and using it was just a minor thing. John would either get it back or find and use Sherlock’s. Whichever was easier.

The Omega couldn’t help the content feeling at the sheer domesticity that so closely mimicked what they were used to yet also managed to reflect their new status as a couple, a word that still sounded strange to his ears. Even his realization that with Sherlock’s head taking up half his lap he had nowhere to actually place his computer or the fact that the back of the head was actually hurting his thigh slightly wasn’t enough to diminish his contentment.

“You know, I doubt Greg is going to allow you on any cases so soon,” John commented after half an hour of lazy surfing on his part and some rather determined key mashing from Sherlock.

“No, I know. I promised that I’d take it easy afterwards and not ask until I got a text from him.”

“Since when have you ever upheld a promise that didn’t benefit you somehow?” John asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Since I shot an unconscious criminal mastermind and psychotic Alpha, killing him for what he had done to my mate,” Sherlock replied calmly as he continued to type.

“I thought you were within your legal rights as an Alpha on that one.”

“I was but there are still ramifications, formalities and paperwork. Lestrade made it clear that if I didn’t want to deal with that, I’d promise to leave him alone until he called us in.”

_Thank goodness we still get private clients, then_ , John thought. “Then who have you been so busy texting to? New clients?”

“No.” Only then did Sherlock turn his gaze upwards to catch the doctor’s eye and John noted in the back of his mind that the posture made his mate look endearingly vulnerable. _Talk about false advertisement._

“Who, then?”

“I have attempted to gain references for a few different midwives that are not utterly useless but none of them want to tell me anything.” There was no sulk but the annoyance was evident.

_I can’t imagine why_ , John thought dryly, thinking on the consulting detective’s manners. ” Sherlock, I’m a doctor. I did do a stint at the maternity ward as a junior doctor. I think I can take care of our baby – god, that still sounds bizarre – without midwife assistance for at least the foreseeable future. It’s not exactly rocket science.”

“I don’t doubt your abilities for an instant, John, but the child is going to develop in a womb that was implanted and left to grow and attach on its own, in an Omega who used to be a Beta and might not be a hundred percent stable as an Omega yet. Pregnancy in and of itself is not without problems, for males and females, and with those additions, it would be beyond moronic not to take every possible precaution.”

He lifted one arm up to cup John’s cheek and the blonde leant into the gesture. “That and I want both of you safe and sound.” He smiled softly.

A sudden and huge lump in his throat kept John silent. It still overwhelmed him that he actually had what he had wanted for so long. That though the circumstances and events leading to this had been harrowing, things had turned out as well as it had for them both; that this was something Sherlock had wanted just as much. It seemed surreal.

The moment was broken by an electronic noise. Not, as one would suspect, from Sherlock’s phone but from John’s laptop, signalling an incoming email.

Knowing that if he didn’t check it, Sherlock would just because he could, John sighed and opened his mail. The sender gave him pause and a frown appeared and grew deeper as he read what had been sent.

“What is it? Is it that tedious woman from your work demanding that you come back in for extra hours?” The tone could not have been more derisive.

“Well...” John replied slowly, focusing on remaining calm and collected even as he felt his mouth draw and the anger build. “It _is_ from Sarah but I don’t think I’m going to be working any extra hours anytime soon. Or ever, for that matter. It says here that I’m fired.”


	2. One thing after another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John has to deal with yet more problems and he's starting to feel it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...wow. The trepidation I felt in posting the first chapter was blown away by the response I got. I am so grateful for all the amazing feedback (especially the kind comments) and that after so much time has passed since the conclusion of the first installment. You guys are the best.

There was silence in the flat for a moment as they both took in the implications of that statement.

Then Sherlock spoke. “Well, it wasn’t as if you ever needed the job.”

“Yes, I did, the rent doesn’t pay itself, you know, and that’s not the point, anyway,” John snapped. “The _point_ is that I’ve been fired with no adequately explained reason given and it’s effective immediately.” He took a breath. Then another that was deeper. It wasn’t helping a great deal.

“You could sue, you know,” the Alpha piped up. “If she’s firing you because of your gender that’s discrimination.”

“Never took you to be so well-versed in legal matters.” The Omega couldn’t help the slight smile at the other’s disdainful snort, despite his anger, but didn’t press further on Sherlock’s legal knowledge. “She doesn’t state as much, citing work relations difficulties as the cause but it’s the only thing that’s changed. Question is, how does she know?” Something occurred to him. “Most of them must know – I practically advertised it, coming in to work smelling like I did. Shit!”

“Not necessarily. People are stupid in general and the people you work with are almost exclusively Betas who have trouble properly smelling anything gender related on the best of days.” Sherlock hauled himself upright in a move that should have looked anything but graceful but managed it somehow. He turned to face his mate. “Someone must have tipped her off that your gender has changed and the imbecile of a female thinks that is grounds for firing you.”

Normally John would tell Sherlock off for talking about Sarah that way but right at that moment he really couldn’t find it in himself to do so, mainly because his line of thought was rather similar at that point. “Who tipped her off, then? Mycroft?”

“Do give him some credit, John. I might dislike my brother at the best of times but he is far from stupid and he would never do anything that would be detrimental to either of us. In fact, he rather likes you.”

“You know, for some inexplicable reason, that last part doesn’t really make me feel better. But who, then? Who else knows that would let Sarah know?”

Sherlock didn’t answer; instead he leant forward to give John a short kiss on the temple before standing up and walking into his – their – room, presumably to go into his Mind Palace.

That left John back in the living room, alone with his own worries. Who could have told her? Why was that reason enough for her to fire him? It wasn’t as though he was less of a doctor just because he was an Omega now. She knew that he was more than qualified for the job and there was, as far as he knew, no policy on what gender could be hired. It was more acceptable, however, for an Omega doctor to be a paediatrician or a GP out in the sticks where stress were not as great a risk, though the risks he’d had since returning to London had been with Sherlock’s cases, not his work as a locum doctor. What he had feared would happen had ended up happening.

He felt a surge of the despair and worry he’d felt at several points during his change; his new status _was_ going to change things, no matter how hard he had fought for it not to. People treated Omegas differently than they did Betas and though there were definite advantages to being an Omega, it had just as many drawbacks if not more. There were ways people were expected to behave and social stigma clung most heavily to the Omegas, try as they might to deny it. Add to that the fact that he was, in his heart and mind, still a Beta who thought and behaved like most Betas did and you had a recipe for, if not disaster, then at the very least trouble.

He wanted to curl up on the sofa and just let it wash over him and he almost did. Then he felt the simmering anger bubbling forth again along with a sense of indignation, rolling right over the despair and burying it deep. He could handle this just as he had handled everything else thrown at him throughout his life and in the last few months in particular. She had no right to fire him on such grounds, even if she didn’t have the balls to state it outright, and she absolutely had no business letting him know through a bloody email. The cheek of it!

He was just about to rummage on the table to try and find some kind of phone so he could call her up and demand a proper explanation for her rather unreasonable actions when a stack of paper started moving slightly. The vibrations came from Sherlock’s phone that he’d left behind but when John finally managed to pull it out from under the stack without toppling anything over in the process the number wasn’t one he recognized.

More than a little wary from his earlier run-ins with unknown callers he managed to take the call just before it stopped ringing and answered in a relatively calm voice that belied his caution. “Who is it?”

“Rather full of suspicion, an opening greeting like that, I feel, John,” the voice on the other end of the phone answered.

“Well, it’s not like you can blame me,” John answered, relaxing ever so slightly at the sound of a familiar voice.

An obnoxious, pompous arse Mycroft might be but he’d proven more than once that he had not only his brother’s but also John’s best interests at heart and had helped tremendously throughout the troubles. The least the doctor could do in return was try and be as cordial as possible. He didn’t spare any thought on whether it was him the older Alpha wanted to talk to; if it wasn’t, he would have called on the phone Sherlock had commandeered.

“Quite,” came the even reply. “Although I do hope your reservations and suspicions do not extend to the belief that I had any part in the disclosure of your new gender to your workplace or your subsequent firing.”

“Phrasing it like that is almost guarantees the suspicion that you did,” John countered, not bothering to think about how the hell Mycroft knew. “That said, no, they don’t. At least, not beyond the first doubt; you wouldn’t stoop to something as pedestrian as that.”

To the doctor’s surprise, he could hear the soft chuckle from the ginger Alpha coming through the phone. “Indeed. Quite apart from the fact that it would be rather uncivilised to do so as your brother-in-law, would it not? I can assure you, though,” he continued and his voice was again serious, “that whoever has leaked the information will be found and... _dealt_ with.”

An involuntary shiver ran down John’s spine at that. He could just imagine what ‘dealt with’ entailed. What worried him more, though, was the warmth in his heart that accompanied that shiver. Then he paused.

“Hang on a minute – brother-in-law?”

A sigh came down the other end; a sigh rather reminiscent of the younger Holmes. “I do realize that as a born Beta, there are several things that you have not had to learn, both biologically and judicially, but I would have thought that one obvious, especially given your profession. When you bit each other, you bonded and were afforded the same legal status as a married couple; thus, brother-in-law.”

“But that means I must have been registered as an Omega, otherwise the bonding wouldn’t have worked and the ‘marriage’ would be null and void. Then it’s no wonder Sarah knew.”

“It is saddening that you have so little faith in me, John. Your new status will only be bureaucratically known outside...select individuals when – or if – you wish it to be known. Rest assured. I look forward to when next we meet.” With that, he ended the call.

John barely had time to put the phone down before a text came in.

_Congratulations on conceiving. Your health and that of the child. I shall look forward to spoiling it as an uncle should. – MH_

Another followed right after, but this time he did not recognize the sender. He knew he should be wary of such things but he couldn’t resist opening it. Reading the text, a shiver went down his spine and settled in to join the sense of unease in the pit of his stomach that was already there.

_Congratulations on making it so far, Johnny Boy. Do you really think you can make it any further?_

When Sherlock re-entered the living room a little while later, having been sorting through some things in his Mind Palace, he was about to make some derogatory comment about Sarah but stopped when he found John sitting stock-still and bolt upright on the sofa, face visibly paled and eyes closed tight. A phone was gripped tightly in one hand though the hand itself was shaking slightly. It was an unsettling sight.

“John?”

“He is dead, right?”

Sherlock didn’t bother asking who was meant; it was more than obvious.

“He is,” he confirmed as he walked over and sat down beside the Omega. “Why do you ask?” He didn’t waste his time on spoken platitudes, either. They weren’t needed. Instead he wove an arm around John’s waist, pulling him closer to his scent, hoping that would provide a small measure of comfort.

Wordlessly John passed over the phone after unlocking it. Sherlock took it, read the message and frowned. “It’s similar wording. This is my phone, though. Why not use yours?”

“You smashed mine against the wall, if you remember,” John pointed out in a voice that was disconcertingly quiet. He swallowed, Adam’s apple visibly bobbing. “This is...if he can come back from the dead, then...”

“That is not physically possible.”

“ ** _I_ ** AM A PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY!” John bellowed in frustration and despairing anger. The sudden outburst startled them both and the doctor took a deep, slightly shuddering breath as he stared at the other. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t yell. I just...it’s just one thing on top of another, like a crazy game of jenga where any day now the piece that is holding it the entire thing upright is going to be pulled and it’ll all come crashing down around me.”

He buried his head in his hands, needing to be weak and vulnerable if only for a minute and hating himself and his new biology for needing this. He didn’t want to be like this; weak, pathetic and dependent on others. No matter what people thought of Omegas, it was not who he was. It was _not_. He’d dealt with everything else just fine, so why this now?

The arm around his waist tightened considerably and he could feel lips pressing against the top of his head. It was a tender gesture that still shocked and warmed.

What warmed more, though, even more than the scent designed to calm coming off the Alpha in waves, were the words that came next.

“I normally do detest repeating myself, so listen carefully.” The words were spoken softly against his hair but were no less audible for that. “You are not an Omega but neither are you a Beta. You are John Hamish Watson, competent doctor, fierce soldier, sentimental blogger, adrenaline seeker to a probably alarming degree, friend to a sociopath with a heart he didn’t know he had and exceptional bond-mate; extraordinary ordinary and perfect. I could not have wished for a better person to be bonded with and you were always my choice for that position, no matter what gender.”

John looked up then, mindful of not bumping his head into anything, and met Sherlock’s eyes. On his face was an expression that of course held the usual aloof cool that was so integral to Sherlock’s personality, but there were also hints of pain, love, pride and a smidgeon of protective Alpha.

“What it takes to get you to show sentiment,” John tried to joke in order to lighten the somewhat tense mood. The hitch in his breath did spoil the effect somewhat, however.

Sherlock merely shrugged with his free shoulder but there was a quirk of his eyebrow that said ‘well, what did you expect of me?’ as well as a soft look in his eyes that spoke of the quiet but burning affection that was becoming more and more evident to John as he learned about this side of his partner.

“That and you managed to take out the man with his own needle while in Heat,” the Alpha pointed out in a voice that sounded more like his usual self. “The likelihood of even Alphas managing that in those circumstances is slim at best. You are strong. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Thank you,” John replied, landing a kiss on his mate’s lips. “You’re right, as always. If he _is_ alive” – and here he ignored the snort from Sherlock – “however unlikely that is...well, as you say, I’ve taken him before and I’m not in as much danger...no, wait, that’s not right.” He frowned slightly. “The danger is twice as big now, isn’t it?”

“It is. But it should be some comfort that however pigheadedly stubborn you sometimes choose to be, you are not facing this alone. I can promise you that much.”

That, in itself, was both a comfort indeed and something that sent a chill down John’s spine, especially when he remembered the flat, deadly serious way that Mycroft had promised him threats to John’s person would not be tolerated and that his Alpha had killed another man – a psychopathic killer and molester, but still – in cold blood because he dared to interfere with someone... _important_ to Sherlock.

They sat in silence for a moment. Then; “We need supplies.”

Well-used to Sherlock’s apparent non-sequiturs, John didn’t as much as blink. “We do, everything’s probably more unsavoury than usual, but since when have you cared about that?”

The Alpha waved a dismissive hand. “Not _groceries_ , don’t be dull. Supplies for an experiment – it should be possible to do it to a quality that would prove successful, not to mention _efficient_.”

“Efficient for what, exactly?” The ever so slight undertone of frustration was something John couldn’t keep out of his voice, even if he had made an effort.

“For toning down your Omega scent, of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still more setup and a bit slow at that but there's going to be resolution to it all, don't worry. I had more to say but it got lost in my brain somewhere.
> 
> Feedback is as always treasured and loved


	3. Prejudice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John goes shopping for the needed ingredients for the spray and is confronted with the behaviour of other people towards Omegas. His reaction? Not very Omega-like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow - so fast I'm turning out chapters atm, right? The advice to try and write 400 words a day helps a lot, I will say.  
> The response I get on this is still so sweet and heartwarming, I can't thank you guys enough.

“Why yes, of course, what else. Silly me to ask, really.” John managed the dry sarcasm as well as always which made Sherlock smile inwardly. “Well, then, best write a list of the things you will need.”

“Why? I can remember what I need perfectly well without writing it _down_ ,” Sherlock replied in a tone that was strongly tinged with affront.

John tried to stand but his efforts were hindered by the arm around his waist that had no intention of letting go. After a couple of attempts he gave up for the moment. “Yes, I know you can but I can’t and I’m not running errands without at least some idea of what I need to get. Now let me up.”

“Who said anything about running errands on your own?” the Alpha asked, ignoring the request. “We’re going together.” It was said matter-of-factly, as if it was the only thing that made sense.

“Oh, no. No. No. Just no. Not this again. I figured the possessive behaviour had to do with you wanting something more but not knowing how to really go about it, what with the scent marks and everything, but I am perfectly capable of getting you supplies on my own, Sherlock. I should actually be safer now that I’m no longer unbonded, so there really is no need.”

It wasn’t that the possessive behaviour wasn’t rather sexy, in its own way, but outside of fantasy, in the cold light of reality, it provided more problems than it did benefits. For one thing, it wasn’t helping his efforts to stay an equal and hang onto his sense of self. For another, having Sherlock looming constantly because of the possessiveness would not only be frustrating, it would more than likely lead to a bored Sherlock and that was dangerous in itself.

“Not quite,” the detective sighed in reply. “You really ought to read up on the significance of smells. I would have thought that you had covered that in medical school at some point.” He ignored the indignant squawk that came at that. “You might not smell unbonded and close to a Heat anymore, that is true, but there can be no question that the bond is recent and what’s more, the notes of pregnancy will alert anyone with a proper sense of smell that you are fertile.”

“So?”

“So kill the offspring and mate with the fertile Omega yourself, regardless of bonding. It’s biology; no one ever said it was logical or sophisticated.” Sherlock made a face that was equal parts nonchalant dismissal and affronted indignation. How he managed it John would never know.

“No, but one would _think_ that we’d have moved beyond that as a society. As a species, even – we are more than animals.”

“The cases we have are often rather ample proof to the contrary.”

“Perhaps,” John reluctantly conceded. “But we should strive to be more than our biology.” He paused as if he had changed his mind on what he was going to say then continued, “In any case, I’m going to get the supplies on my own, no argument. If you want to be useful, you can...oh, I don’t know, find a proper midwife or something. Or sulk on the couch.”

“I do not sulk.”

The Omega couldn’t help his grin. “Yeah, you do.”

 

Half an hour later found John standing in line at the chemist’s, looking at the list he’d managed to get out of his mate and trying to decipher the handwriting. Some of the things he recognized as terpenes and aromatics, some he knew he shouldn’t let the girl behind the counter see and some he almost couldn’t read.

He’d asked why he didn’t just get the list on a text but had gotten a withering look in return and been told that there was no reason to alert Mycroft to _everything_ , which he supposed were kind of true. Not that he doubted the older Alpha wouldn’t work it out regardless but there was no need to make it easy on him, brother-in-law or not.

The queue was substantially longer than he had expected, though, and by the time he was halfway, he was well aware of what secondary gender each of his fellow queue-victims had.

It was still strange for him to be able to smell others far more acutely than he had ever been able to as a Beta. He might have been coming to his changed state gradually but with all that had been going on, how people differed in smells and what that meant hadn’t really been at the front of his mind. His scenting abilities might also only have come into their own when he became...fully fledged, as it were.

To smell them now, with little else to occupy himself with – apart from the things that he rather not think about at all – and cooped up in a rather small room, it was hard not to get a bit of sensory overload.

The Alphas were the worst. There were a couple of Betas, among them the girl behind the counter, their smells muted and uninteresting, though pleasant enough. It was hard to define what they smelt of, per se, which went for everyone, but it seemed as if a Beta’s inability to properly smell scents had made their own scents fade considerably over the years of evolution; they were almost drowned out by the scents coming off the Alphas and Omegas in the room.

The scent of the Omegas had more of sweet tinge, reminiscent of berries, cliché though that sounded. The Alphas were almost pungent in their wooden, earthy scents and while he recognized that what he was beginning to register and like in Sherlock’s scent was present in other Alphas as well, he couldn’t say he particularly cared for any of the others. They irritated his nose.

It wasn’t helped by having to stand right in front of one male Alpha who had trouble with the concept of personal space. He kept shifting on his feet so that he was alternately close to the one behind and the one in front. John got the distinct impression, however, that the man was getting progressively closer to him for each shift in his direction.

His suspicion was confirmed when he felt a broad hand cup his arse. Reacting quickly, he reached down to grab hold of the wrist and, careful not to disturb the people around him more than he absolutely had to, twisted it quick and hard before letting go. There was a sharp intake of breath from behind.

“What’s your problem?”

John slowly turned around, eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”

The man – somewhat younger than John and rather lanky – was cradling his hand, a disbelieving and affronted look on his face. “I said, what’s your problem? Not like I was doing anything.”

“Oh, really?” the Omega shot back, keeping his tone as pleasant as possible. “So the invasion of personal space and the groping of my arse without my consent isn’t anything? I’m so glad to hear it.” He lowered his voice. “Touch me again and I promise you I’ll do more than just injure your wrist.” He flashed a smile that was only superficially friendly.

“You can’t do that! You’re an Omega!”

Taking a deep breath so as to tamp down on his rising temper, John smiled again. There might be a whole lot of things making his life difficult and filled with unease at the moment but one little entitled twerp wasn’t going to faze him. “Yep. That’s me; bonded Omega with a bun in the oven, medical doctor, former surgeon and captain of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. What I am _not_ is a piece of meat for you or anyone else to grope whenever you feel like it. Now I’m picking up some things I need and I would very much like to do that in peace.”

He turned back around, only to be met with a disgruntled employee.

“You’re causing a scene, sir. Please leave.”

John resisted the childish urge to say ‘ _No, I’m not, he is’_ while pointing a finger and replied instead, “Actually, I was trying to prevent a scene that was in no way, shape or form caused by me. Unless of course you count my secondary gender as automatically responsible for anything even resembling sexual harassment which I sincerely hope not. Discrimination laws are rather strict in that regard.” He retained eye contact with the female employee the entire time, keeping his composure surprisingly well, he thought, while he spoke.

The people in line with him, not including the Alpha behind him, stared at him, their expressions varying from annoyance and irritation over incredulity and disbelief to tentative smiles and grateful expressions. The latter were found on the Omegas and one of the Betas; the girl behind the counter.

John just stared back. The small speech he’d gotten from Sherlock back in the flat had not only warmed his heart but reminded him that he was more than his gender and some ignorant, self-righteous chemist’s customers weren’t going to browbeat him with their prejudices.

It took a little while before the stares stopped, for the most part, and everyone continued on with their business; the employee who’d asked him to leave looked unsure for a moment as whether to ask again or drop the matter. She decided on the latter and marched to the back of the shop as if that had been her plan all along.

During the entire wait to the front of the line, the Alpha behind continued to invade John’s personal space but since there was no actual touching, he chose to ignore it, grating though it were.  

When he finally got to counter, the girl gave him a soft, understanding and apologetic smile as she asked what she could help him with today. He gave her a bright smile in return for her kindness, which for some reason made her blush faintly, and listed what he needed. Some of the things he asked for they didn’t have but she gave him a tip to where they might stock it and rang in the items. As they were put into a bag, she gave him another smile and an eye roll. He nodded, thanked her and left, ignoring the continued glares from some of the other customers.

It was only when he was checking the receipt a couple of streets away from the chemist’s that he realized he had not been charged for some of the items and he stopped in his tracks in sheer annoyance. Discrimination was discrimination, whether it was negative or positive and it angered him; he did not want special treatment merely because he was now of the perceived ‘weak’ secondary gender!

He almost turned right around to give the ‘free’ stuff back but then changed his mind as he thought more about it. Firstly, he didn’t want to deal with that shop again if he could help it. Secondly, there was no reason to get the girl there in trouble for doing something like that and thirdly, she had more than likely just meant it as an apology for the way he had been treated by her colleague. There was no reason to get upset. He told himself that as he consulted his list once more and started in the direction of the next shop. Then he told himself again.

 

By the time he’d managed to pick up most of what had been written on the list, another hour and a half had elapsed, he’d been into several more stores and he was by then shaking. Not with exhaustion but with barely contained frustration.

The discrimination he’d experienced almost everywhere had ranked from the overly kind over the patronizing to the suggestive and downright lecherous, though there had thankfully not been anymore groping, at least so far. What Sherlock had said had proven to be right; instead of the attention dwindling since he was no longer unbonded or close to a Heat, it had escalated with the components in his scent telling people that this Omega was fertile enough to smell pregnant so shortly after a Heat. After being...bred.

Deciding that they did indeed need regular supplies as well as what the Alpha needed for the experiment – and as his shopping wore on, John began to look forward more and more to that scent-dulling spray – he’d headed into the nearest supermarket, which happened to be a Marks & Spencer.

Due to the layout of the store, he had to go through the clothes’ section first, including the children’s clothes. He had the honest intention of just walking past but then he saw something out of the corner of his eye that made him stop and take a closer look.

It was a hooded blanket; a warm yellow colour throughout, with small honey jars adorning the corners and velvety-soft antennas giving, along with black, embroidered eyes, the hood the impression of a bee’s face.

Sherlock would probably scoff at it for the patently unrealistic depiction of a bee but there was something about it that just appealed to John immensely and he found himself smoothing his fingers over the exceedingly soft material over and over.

Without examining the reason behind it too closely, he put the blanket in the basket he was carrying and carried it with him as he continued round the store for some bare essentials to ensure they wouldn’t starve.

He picked the unmanned checkout, despite his earlier troubles with the chip and pin machines, wanting to get through quickly, seeing as it was empty except for one woman who, although an Alpha, was already in the process of bagging her items. It looked like he wouldn’t have to interact with anyone and he was grateful for that.

That hope was put to rest, however, when the woman turned and, after a split-second of the confused concentration people display when they’re trying to remember why a face is familiar, broke into a broad smile.

“I _thought_ I recognized you! Hello, John, what a lovely surprise!” She stepped forward to envelop him in an embrace that made him blink in surprise but he managed to return it, although somewhat awkwardly.

About to make the awkwardness worse by asking who she was, he caught a stronger dose of her scent and then he remembered exactly who she was and the awkwardness faded considerably.

“Hello, Maureen,” he returned as she let him go. “How are you?”

It didn’t hurt to be polite; after all, though she had been slightly patronizing in her approach, she had also helped him out without expecting anything in return and rather more than she was probably aware.

“Oh, can’t complain,” she replied with another smile. “Life’s been pretty good, all things considered. Of course not quite as good as yours, though, huh? Bonded and pregnant and everything – did the Alpha who left scent markers on you grow enough balls, then?”

Her cheery bluntness was a breath of fresh air after the day he’d endured and so he found himself laughing as he started on scanning his wares. “He did indeed. Wasn’t exactly plain sailing to get there but somehow we managed to work it out. Still, it’s only been a few days, so we still have some kinks to work out.” _Like the persistence of his possessive streak, my firing and a maybe-not-dead master criminal_ , he mentally added.

“Oh, you’ll be fine, sweetie. You know, an Alpha who can let his or her new bond mate out of their sight without checking up on them regularly so recently after a Heat – and a fruitful one at that – is a sign of trust on the Alpha’s part – and something of a rarity, I have to say.” She gave another smile, this one slightly self-deprecating. “We might be the secondary gender with the highest status and the subsequent perks but we aren’t always the brightest or most enlightened individuals.”

“One should always strive to be more than one’s gender.” John felt like he was quoting someone but couldn’t put his finger on whom.

That seemed to bring her back to her usual disposition and she chuckled. “Never a truer word. Now, I’d love to stay and chat but I’ve got to get home and fix up dinner.” Her eyes sparkled and he got the distinct impression there was more to it than that. Not that he’d pry.

She hugged him again and waved with the hand holding her plastic bag as she made her way past other customers towards the exit.

Smiling vaguely at having had a positive experience during this errand-run, John finished checking out his items, had only a very minor wrangle with the chip and pin, and was bagging the last of the groceries when he noticed something at the bottom of the bag; a folded piece of paper.

It didn’t look like a flyer or anything else you might expect to find in a supermarket plastic bag. Besides, it most certainly hadn’t been there when he’d started packing the groceries. An internal warning light flashed at the sight of it, he was on high alert and consequently he stiffened slightly in instinctual defence.

Looking up, he scanned the room in search of anyone acting out of the ordinary; he might not have the observational skill of Sherlock Holmes but he had been trained by the Army and a soldier without at least some awareness of possible dangers was more often than not a dead soldier.

There was no-one, however, but then he hadn’t really expected to see anyone. Whoever was responsible for this...whatever it was certainly wouldn’t be so stupid as not to blend in.

Putting the paper in his trouser pocket for the moment, he finished bagging his stuff, carried the groceries, along with the rest of his shopping, out the store and back towards home.

It was only when he was able to slip into a mostly deserted side street that he took out the paper and opened it to read.

_So very brave, John, going out on your own when there are so many dangers out there. Brave or stupid. You should be careful, you know._

_Wouldn’t want anything to happen, would we? To you or the baby._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it slowgoing? Perhaps but hopefully not or at least not something that drags it down. It was interesting to write, at the very least. Did anyone expect Maureen to make a reappearence?
> 
> I'd love feedback, as always :) It's dearly treasured.


	4. Back at 221B

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John comes home but Sherlock is behaving oddly. John tries to work out why

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, the 'write 400 words a day' seems to work pretty well so far. No guarantees it'll continue. :)  
> You continue to blow me away with the kind words and encouragement, people. It's an absolute pleasure and I thank you.  
> Still no beta :)

When John reached the front door to 221, it was well into the evening and he was more than tired. The tube ride hadn’t been too bad, all things considered, but then again, it might just have been that he had been too worn out and preoccupied to notice the behaviour of the other passengers.

Shifting the bags he was carrying to one hand, ignoring the way the weight pulled on the shoulder where his bond bite was located and thinking to himself that he should have picked the Marks & Spencer just down the road instead, he fumbled in his jacket pocket for the jumble of keys. Before he got any further than pulling them out, however, the door opened to reveal Sherlock, with Mrs. Hudson standing not far behind him.

The Alpha looked decidedly dishevelled; not in the way he usually did when he’d been lounging on the sofa all day, which was annoyingly artful in its execution and rather beautiful in its presentation, but more like normal people did, with mussed hair that was alternatively flat and frizzy, rumpled clothes and a strange look in his eyes. John took all this in quickly, blinking once or twice in confusion. What on earth had happened?

“Oh, John, there you are!” Mrs. Hudson exclaimed, pushing past the Alpha to get a better look herself. “It’s good to have you home – Sherlock’s been torturing that poor violin for over two hours now. You know, normally I don’t mind his playing but – oh, goodness, the screeching!”

John was only half-listening to her as he focused more on wondering why Sherlock had bothered coming all the way downstairs to greet him only for him not to say anything while having that rather strange expression. His confusion wasn’t helped by the fact that the detective took the bags from the Omega’s hand, tugging insistently until he got them, and then retreated back upstairs, all without saying a word.

“I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, Mrs. Hudson,” John finally managed to say, turning his attention back to his landlady. “I’ll go and talk to him.”

“Oh, no, no,” she said, eyeing him with a knowing smile and as often before, he got the impression that she wasn’t quite as ditzy as she liked to portray herself as. “It’s good to see that he’s worried about you, dear. I just wish he would take out his Alpha-influenced frustrations on something quieter.”

“Worried? What makes you say that?”

“It’s his smell. You can smell it all the way down here when he’s in a proper strop because he’s worried, though it doesn’t happen too often. He takes it out on the violin but the other times it’s been actual music but then I suppose the fact that you’ve bonded must take its toll, too, and – oh, John, are you alright?”

“What? Oh. Yes, quite fine, thank you, Mrs. Hudson. Is he...worried a lot?” It was still quite unnerving to know that strong emotions could manifest themselves in the smell of a person. Not that he figured Sherlock would be one to be afflicted very much by such a thing.

“No, not really. He’s...well, Sherlock, isn’t he?” John nodded, his assumption confirmed. “Sometimes, though, the scent gets quite strong and I know something’s on his mind. Like that time a few months back, oh, what was it? It was night, you’d been gone for some time by then, and the scent coming down from your flat was...oh, it was downright pungent, you know. Then he came thundering down the stairs, like he does when he’s excited, but the smell gave him away.”

It took him a moment or two but when he managed to connect the dots, John’s eyes widened in realization. That must have been the time when he’d gone to Sarah’s only to end up kidnapped and messed with by Moriarty. The time frame fit, at any rate. Sherlock had been worried then? But he’d only stormed out in the first place because the Alpha git had acted so very cold, calculated and...inhuman, for lack of a better word and it had become too much for the then-Beta to deal with.

There were obviously a lot of clues hidden in the subtle intricacies of scents, ones Betas were for the most part not privy to thanks to their fairly limited, if not non-existent, sense of gender-related smells. Subsequently, they didn’t have to deal with them and had trouble comprehending the part scents played in the lives of Alphas and Omegas. It was suddenly easier to comprehend for the doctor why the two other secondary genders tended to treat Betas with a slight sense of pity. It must be like trying to talk to someone who was deaf but not aware of it.

That was one thing, however major a thing that really was, but what was more shocking to the Omega was the fact that this was another demonstration of Sherlock showing sentiment towards John _before_ the injections and his enforced changes. It soothed the worry he’d held that their relationship had been brought about mostly due to biology. Granted, that belief had waned considerably already by Lestrade’s revelation of the scent markers and how far back those went as well as Sherlock’s comments on the matter but this helped quiet the small, persistent niggle of doubt, silly though that was.

“John, are you sure you’re alright?” The small Omega woman laid a gentle hand on his lower arm, a questioning, worried look on her face.

He laid his hand over hers after a moment, giving as reassuring a smile as he could manage. “I’m fine, honest. Thank you for asking. It’s just...I’d best get up there – not sure I’m entirely comfortable with him being left alone with the groceries.” While it was true, for what it was worth, it wasn’t _quite_ right but she didn’t need to know that. No need to worry her.

Mrs. Hudson merely smiled at him, that knowing look back in her eyes, then turned and ambled back into 221A, muttering about something or other under her breath.

Once up the flight of stairs leading to 221B, John paused at the half open door. Sherlock’s behaviour when he’d arrived home had definitely been odd, even for him, but there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation. Determined not to let himself get worked up by more than what he couldn’t help, the doctor pushed open the door the rest of the way and stepped into his home.

If someone had pressed him to say what he’d expected, he wasn’t sure he could have answered. Whatever it was, though, he felt he could safely say that it wasn’t Sherlock putting away the things John had brought home when he went into the kitchen, finding the living room empty. It wasn’t even just him pulling out the stuff he needed for the production of the spray; there was no groceries to be seen anywhere, not even in the bin. A cursory glance into the open fridge confirmed it.

All that was left on the unusually uncluttered worktop was the bag of things picked up from the chemist’s. There was no immediate sign of the baby blanket, either, which puzzled the doctor as well as worried him ever so slightly.

“Sherlock, are you alright?”

Sherlock shot him an odd look out of the corner of his eye but didn’t otherwise answer. He continued to pull the remaining things out but something struck John as odd. It took him a moment to pinpoint it; everything was being taken out with only one hand because the other one was occupied with holding the baby blanket. Not only holding it, in fact, but clutching it very tightly though the taller man otherwise showed no signs of acknowledgement of what his mate had bought.

Only when everything was lined up on the worktop to his apparent satisfaction did Sherlock turn to look at John.

“Sherlock?”

Before he had a chance to do much of anything, the Omega found himself wrapped in Alpha, Sherlock’s nose pressing into the point on his neck where he’d originally bitten, sniffing softly, but insistently. It rather hurt to have something press that firmly against what was essentially a healing wound but he chose to ignore it in favour of providing the younger Holmes with something he seemed to need even if he wasn’t going to say it out loud.

At some point the sniffing stopped but resumed almost immediately with an intensity that was slightly worrying. John wanted to ask but figured that they’d get to it.

Eventually they did. “You smell of something that is vague but familiar,” the consulting detective explained, words somewhat muddled by being spoken so close to skin. “I can’t get a clear enough whiff of it to positively identify it but it’s there, beneath all the other scents of other people who’s come too close.”

“Too close? Is this your possessiveness kicking in again?”

Sherlock didn’t deign to answer the question, choosing instead to lift his head to look John in the eye and ask one of his own. “Who have you been close that’s smells so familiar?”

“Well, I bumped into someone at Marks and Sparks who I also met at the library when...you know. She hugged me. Maybe that is it?”

“Hmm...” A thoughtful look was in those pale eyes for a moment but then there was a shake of the head. “No, it’s more familiar than that.”

John debated with himself for a moment but decided that it was probably for the best if he told Sherlock about the note he’d received. It wasn’t that he couldn’t deal with it on his own – probably, at least – but circumstances had proved, throughout his change, that doing so could result in more trouble than it solved. There were of course the somewhat uncontrolled reactions from the Alpha to keep in mind but he hoped that those would be curbed by the bond and the fact that they would work together, not apart.

He pulled himself partially out of the almost vice-like grip Sherlock had on him so that he could dig in his pocket. “It might be...you remember that text I got earlier today?”

The ‘must you be stupid?’ expression was mandatory but apart from that the younger Holmes kept silent so John continued. “Well, I found this at the bottom of the grocery bag I was packing.” He handed the slip of paper over.

Sherlock took it with the hand not holding the baby blanket against the doctor’s hip, opened it and quickly read it. Then he brought the paper up to his nose, carefully inhaling a few times, a frown developing on his features as he did and a tinge of cold fury lurking in his eyes.

“Is it the same?” John asked, wary of the answer.

“Hard to tell accurately,” Sherlock answered slowly. “Objects are generally bad at retaining smells in anything but traces if they’re not strongly and continually exposed to the same scent. There is _something_ there but it’s even vague than the smell on you. Faint trace of...” he took another breath “...something sweet but not right.”

“Blood plasma?”

“Yes!” The Alpha exclaimed, looking at his mate in surprise. “How did you know?”

“I’ve smelled it before,” the Omega confessed, looking uneasy. “Moriarty’s scent had the exact same notes.”

“He is dead, John. There can be others with the same scent. Given the amount of Alphas in the world it would be highly improbable for there to be only one with that scent.”

“Have you ever encountered anyone else with a scent of rot?”

“Blood plasma is not the same as rot.” John just looked at him. “No, I haven’t. It could be linked to his own change to Alpha and the components added there.”

“Wait, what?”

“As always, you see but don’t observe. He’d experimented on himself, too, obviously, and with clear success. It is not unlikely that changing from Beta to Alpha instead of to Omega would prove easier, given the smaller amount of hormones needed for the change and the lack of any need for surgery.” Sherlock looked at John intently. “That does still not change the fact that he is dead. Nobody can rise from the dead.”

“You know my attitude towards the seemingly impossible, Sherlock,” John said quietly, not breaking eye contact. The expression in those pale eyes gave him comfort but it also worried him; a hint of something hidden, something that was deliberately not being said but was clearly not a good thing. He contemplated asking but if he knew his mate, the smart move, the only move, would be to wait until the man himself elected to tell.

That wasn’t to say it was something John liked, to put it mildly, but he’d live.

The silence stretched between them as they continued to look each other in the eye. It was strangely not uncomfortable, unspoken things notwithstanding, but felt like those moments they sometimes shared after they’d successfully caught someone at the end of a chase. It was one of those things that had helped John fall for his flatmate in the first place.

“Who do you suppose it is, then?” John asked after what seemed like ages. “If we accept that it can’t be Moriarty“– he ignored the snort from the detective – “then that leaves us with the question of whom else it could be.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I suppose that the comments about my pregnancy aren’t really a clue given that it’s pretty obvious from my scent and all.”

“Except that the text – and whatever message caused that imbecilic woman to fire you – came before you had been out of the flat. The cabbie was a Beta which rules him out. No one else knew at that point.” Sherlock brought the paper up for a closer examination. “The writing – quite surprising that it is actually handwritten given this day and age as well as the potential for incriminating oneself – has a tilt to the words and a press on the paper that clearly indicates a male writer; a male writer who is left-handed and was in quite a hurry when it was written, judging by the rather sloppy way the a’s have been done.”

“Well, that rules out something, then,” John muttered. He ignored the sharp, questioning look he received from Sherlock at that, most because at that point a yawn forced its way out of his throat, stretched out and deeply felt, sending a shudder through him as well as it passed.

When it stopped, Sherlock was looking at him, the tense moment broken, though quite unintentionally, and a quirk to his lips that indicated a smile was attempting to break loose but wasn’t being allowed to do so. The amusement wasn’t hidden quite as effectively hidden in the pale eyes but then that was probably quite deliberate.

“Bed?” John asked, giving a soft smile himself. It was a welcome relief to have something to smile at after the day he’d endured. With everything else as well, the thought of bed was sounding like a good plan, though.

“Gladly,” his mate replied, not moving an inch, “but not before you’ve had something to eat. Something that will fill you up.”

“Since when have you been concerned with whether or not I eat? Normally you hardly even take notice of your own body’s needs.”

“Just because I choose to ignore it and rise above the needs of the transport does not mean I am unaware or unconcerned, especially when it comes to you – and the child you’re carrying.” The last words were spoken a little quicker than the rest of the little speech which gave the impression that it was an addition. Given how careful, how _calculated_ Sherlock tended to be with his words it was more than unlikely that it was added by accident or a lack of forethought.

John smiled again, this time inwardly. Trust Sherlock to admit to long term sentiment like that. It was endearing and, again, comforting.

He turned and went over to look into the fridge. “You do realize that it’s barely even there yet and as such it would be rather stupid to eat more than I usually at do, right?” There was no answer but then he hadn’t exactly expected one. “Right, then – I’ll see what I can make out of what I brought home. Shall I make enough for two?”

“No need. We’re going out.”

“Why?”

“Because Mycroft is paying – when we were leaving the...facility earlier he made me promise that we would come out for a celebration of the bond.” John couldn’t see his mate’s expression with his back turned but then he didn’t really need to. “He was quite insistent.”

“I bet he was,” the Omega said as he turned away from the fridge. “I’m more surprised you didn’t just dismiss him outright and tell him to piss off, though.” _Like you always do,_ went unspoken.

“I owe him, loathe as I am to admit it, for all that he has done for me...for _us_ in the past few days.” He paused. “That and I want to celebrate it, too. Obviously.”

Sherlock had a strange look in his eyes again but John recognized pretty quickly that it was only odd because it displayed the vulnerability that went with sentiment. His fears from earlier in the day had been entirely unjustified; Sherlock was in no way back to the way he had been when John had been a Beta, or rather, he wasn’t holding the things he felt under complete lock and key as he had before. More than the words of love or the passion of the Heat, more than the subconscious things like scents, the quiet gestures like the movement of the clothes and the willing to let the feelings manifest cemented the reality of his feelings.

“Thank you,” John said quietly. He stretched to plant a brief kiss on Sherlock’s lips, pulling back before either of them turned it into a bit more. “For everything. Just...thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No cliffhanger? What a twist. ;)   
> I feel like all they've done this chapter is talk and gotten absolutely nowhere but as I've experienced before, any attempt to pull it in a different or faster direction was met with complete block. So apologies if it feels slow-going (though I thank people for liking the pace up until now) :) It does have a point in the end, though, so...
> 
> Feedback as always is treasured deeply


	5. Something to think about

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock enlists Mycroft's help and John suspects there is something he isn't being told. WIll he get an answer?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can only apologize for the wait in this chapter. I went on holiday for a week then I had a commission on a story (a bit of a rollercoaster, that) as well as some RL crap and then, when I'd finally finished that, I hit a bit of a burn-out. All in all, it's been...well, yeah. Not really the optimal headspace for writing.  
> Anyway, once again I thank all of the sweet people who leave me feedack in one way or the other. You are all kind and amazing and I can't thank you enough.

The ride in the cab to the restaurant was quiet. They sat as they always did, John looking out the window at a world that he knew so well and yet felt so very alien to him at the moment. It was anything but easy to banish the despair lurking.

Then he felt something on his thigh, right above his knee and he looked down to see a broad, elegant if bony hand resting there, making no indication of any other purpose than just staying there. It was neither heavy nor light but rested as easily as if it were placed on the owner’s own thigh. A smile tugged at his lips and he covered the hand with his own before turning his gaze back out the window.

 

* * *

 

 

“Ah, John, Sherlock – so pleased you could make it.” The man didn’t even look up from whatever he was skimming. It did not look like the menu.

The restaurant they had arrived at looked notably more sombre and unassuming than the Omega would have expected of his brother-in-law; there was no extravagance, no lavish interior decorations or staff dressed to the nines. It still spoke of quality and professionalism but it was downplayed in a way that was puzzling and refreshing.

“Hello Mycroft. To be honest, I’m surprised we weren’t picked up by one of your lackeys,” John replied as he slid into a chair opposite the Alpha already sitting down, Sherlock plumping down on his own chair with his usual grace shortly after.

“Why waste resources on something when I knew you’d be coming all on your own?” Mycroft took his eyes away from the documents before him to fix his scrutinizing gaze upon John who weren’t terribly put out by it by this point, disconcerting though it could be.

“How did – you know what, that’s a stupid question, forget I asked.”

Sherlock chuckled. “Oh, that’s a shame – depriving you of your chance to show off a little, brother.”

“Something you would know only too well, wouldn’t you, Sherlock?” the older Holmes asked pleasantly, not rising to the bait. He turned his attention back to the Omega. “Let me once again congratulate you on conceiving, John. A pleasant outcome despite the circumstances.”

“Not like he did it all on his own,” Sherlock said only somewhat under his breath, a slightly surly tone to his voice. He was soundly ignored by his brother. John, on the other hand, tried to hide a smile.

“With that in mind, I have taken the liberty of already ordering for all three of us.”

As if on cue – and neither residents of 221B would put _that_ past the man – a Beta waiter reached their table, laden down with several plates of food that he distributed on the table, deftly working around the file taking up the room on Mycroft’s side, without even asking who was having what. He did, however, nod respectfully towards the elder Alpha before walking away. The doctor hoped it was to fetch something to drink other than water.

John then took a moment to actually look down at the food laid out before him and had to raise an eyebrow at what he saw. Not only were there two plates placed in front of him while the other two only had one each, the plates themselves were filled to capacity with food.

He looked up again to find the two brothers looking at him with disconcertingly similar expectant expressions on their faces. “That is...quite a lot of food,” he managed. “I doubt I’ll be able to eat all that.”

“Oh but you must, John. It is vital to keep healthy, especially in your situation.” It was Mycroft speaking but Sherlock gave a slight inclination of his head in agreement.

John felt a nerve tick just below his eye. “Obviously, yes, of course but it’s only been a few days, at the _most_ , since it was conceived. It is hardly even a foetus yet and while pregnancy does take a lot of energy, I should not be required to eat any more than I usually do for at least the first trimester. What is takes from me to fuel its growth is miniscule at best. So eating all of this would only end up with me gaining weight.”

“I _was_ referring to the fact that you have just been through not only a rather,” Mycroft cleared his throat in a rather pointed manner, “ _intense_ Heat but a physically and mentally draining period before and after it. As such, you have started depleting your reserves and so it is only logical to have a meal that would replenish those reserves.”

He ignored the snort from the doctor that came at that, choosing instead to fix his brother with a faintly disapproving look. “In fact, keeping a mate healthy is one of the Alpha’s duties.”

Sherlock shifted on his chair at that. It was only a small movement that would go unnoticed by almost everyone but both John and Mycroft spotted it; the latter because of his own talents and the former due to a prolonged exposure to the quirks and habits of the younger Holmes. It spoke of decided unease.

He opened his mouth to cover his discomfort presumably by launching a verbal assault on the older Alpha but before he could say anything, John spoke up.

“And one of an Omega’s duties is to be subservient,” the blonde said, meeting Mycroft’s gaze levelly. “I have no intentions of being so, however, whatever anyone says or thinks, and so whatever ‘duties’ either of us choose to fulfil is our own choice. I have been able to feed myself _as well as_ the idiot beside me for quite a while without any sort of input or help from anyone, I am a qualified _doctor_ and if I eat all of this I am quite frankly going to have a Technicolor yawn.”

He very much expected them to look affronted; Sherlock because he’d called him an idiot and Mycroft because he’d flat out rejected the meal that was in all likelihood, knowing Mycroft, kindly meant. What he saw instead baffled him somewhat; they were both almost beaming at him, or what passed for beaming for the two, and Sherlock looked decidedly smug.

“He’s good, isn’t he?”

“Of course he is. Do you really think I would have picked an inferior mate?”

“Why do I even bother?” John mumbled in an exasperated tone. He ignored the two brothers as well as the way his hands were clasping the cutlery a little too tightly and started digging into his food. He might not be able to eat all of it but there was such a thing as manners – and unnecessary waste.

It was good. Of course it was good. Mycroft Holmes didn’t waste his time eating anywhere that didn’t serve food of high quality, for all his brother’s teasing about his weight.

After a moment of silence, the Omega looked up again. Mycroft had begun had eating as well while Sherlock, true to form, hadn’t as much as looked at his food. They were looking at each other in a meaningful manner and John got the distinct impression, as he had before, that they were communicating something that he wasn’t supposed to know.

“I don’t suppose,” he said aloud, “that there’s any chance the two of you could actually, oh, I don’t know, _talk_ instead of exchanging meaningful looks like blooming teenagers.”

Soundly ignoring the question, Mycroft chose to ask one of his own. “Is there any plan for a bonding ceremony?”

“Well, we were sort of thinking of going to Gretna Green.”

Sherlock’s lip quirked at John’s quip but his face otherwise remained passive. “I don’t see the reason for any kind of ceremony,” he replied. “We’re already bonded and settled and the rest of the tedious ritual of the bonding ceremony is frankly nothing but an encumbrance we can most certainly do without.”

“Shame.” That seemed to be all that the elder Alpha was going to say on the subject – or rather, would verbalize.

The meal continued in more companionable mood, interspersed with the usual sniping back and forth on the part of the brothers. It was another sign of treasured normality. That said the similarities of their scents made it seem like one scent that was threatening to clog up his nose with its intensity.

The significance of the silent conversation was one John tried not to dwell on.

 

* * *

 

“Mycroft...”

They were sitting alone at the table; John had had to retreat to the gent’s after having been coerced and subtly manipulated in various ways until he had eaten not only the two plates of food that had been brought in to begin with but also the more than generous dessert he had, despite louder protestations, been all but browbeaten into eating.

“Yes, Sherlock?”

The younger Holmes studiously looked straight ahead, his face impassive and his posture composed and almost nonchalant. There was something in his air, though, that gave away his actual state of mind, at least to his brother. “You will help, won’t you? With...” he trailed off.

“I am surprised you need to ask. I have already helped you both throughout...this and done so willingly. This threatens the succession of the Holmes line which is unacceptable.”

Sherlock glared at him for that. Mycroft didn’t seem fazed in the least.

“Deny it all you like, brother dear, but the continuation of our family _is_ important. That and as an uncle I shall look very much forward to spoiling your future children rotten.”

“That is only if this one –“

“Quiet now,” the elder Holmes interrupted softly but intently, placing a gentle hand atop the younger man’s equally bony hand on the table. “John should be coming back from his journey to the gent’s.”

 

* * *

 

“So...any chance that you are going to tell me what you were discussing with your brother?”

They were sitting in the cab on the way home. Sherlock looked as composed as ever while John was fidgeting ever so slightly due to discomfort over his overindulgent eating.

“What makes you think we were discussing anything?”

John had to roll his eyes and smile at the non-attempt at feigning ignorance. “Oh, no reason, except that you don’t allow most people to touch you, especially Mycroft, but there was no attempt to pull away from the touch as you usually do. Neither were you pulling any kind of faces.”

“I do not pull faces.”

“You do, Sherlock, some quite good ones, too, at times. But you’re not going to distract me from my question – and don’t give me that innocent look, it doesn’t work.” His voice lowered to a mumble. “Oh, god, if the kid’s going to resemble you, I’m not sure I’m going to survive raising it.”

There was no doubt that the Alpha must’ve heard the mumble but he forewent commenting. Instead he curled a hand around the shoulder of his mate and squeezed, mindful of the bond bite. “I will explain, I promise. I just need to test out a few things first.”

“Why is that not reassuring in the slightest?” He got no reply but then he hadn’t really expected one, either. “Fine, then. Please yourself.”

 

* * *

 

 

When they got home John was ushered up the stairs and almost herded into the now shared bedroom. He half expected Sherlock to strip him and then scent all over him which might lead somewhere but though he was stripped of his clothes and he could clearly tell that at least the detective’s body was interested in a perfunctory manner, he was merely shooed under the covers and tucked in.

“Okay, now I _know_ you’re molly cuddling me,” he said as he struggled out of the blanket cocoon he’d been bundled into, glaring slightly at the still fully clothed brunette. “First you put away the actual groceries and all of them to boot. Then you take me out to dinner and proceed to bully me into frankly overeating because I’m pregnant and when we get back here, you usher me into bed and tuck me in like I’m a child. On top of that you’ve had a haunted look in your eyes ever since I got home from getting supplies and you have been evading my attempts to get you to say something. Now tell me – _what the hell is going on?”_

“Am I not allowed to just take care of my Omega?”

“Of course you are but there’s taking care and there’s this. You may call me unobservant but I’m not that blind, you know.”

Sherlock’s expression returned to that haunted look John had meant. He moved into the room and settled himself carefully on the edge of the bed, hands clasped together in his lap, looking at John like he might disappear at any moment. He cleared his throat. “I ran across something when studying the information we’ve been given by Moriarty – something that just doesn’t fit. The data is unclear to say the least, however, so I wanted to have more time to study it before I told you.”

“But it’s bad.” It was a statement, not a question.

“It could be,” Sherlock replied, in that curt manner that said he was being honest. John was grateful for it. “It could also be nothing more than a miscalculation in the hormone administered to produce pheromones.”

_Like hell it is or you wouldn’t bother_. The Omega didn’t voice that thought out loud, too tired and with too many other worries in his head to have the energy to start an argument at that point and he felt sure that an argument was what they were going to have if he pressed on. He had no intention of letting it go completely, of course, but postponing it until his mate was at least sure seemed like the best option at that moment.

Outwardly he chose to only nod though he did reach out to lay his hand over Sherlock’s clasped ones. He brushed his thumb across the laced fingers until they eventually disentangled, one bony hand grasping his.

“Coming to bed?” John asked quietly. It still sent a quiet thrill through him; the thought that he was actually allowed all this instead of just wishing for it or imagining it.

Sherlock looked torn for a moment before he nodded. He started unbuttoning his shirt as he stood, shedding it and his trousers as efficiently as possible then slid under the covers to curl around his mate. It wasn’t the possessive lock that had been his habit during the Heat but the way he moulded himself to the other was much more endearing, at least in the Omega’s opinion.

It didn’t take John long to fall asleep; after the tension of the day and the stress of the previous days there was no way he would be anything but exhausted and so he was out within five minutes of closing his eyes. Sherlock, meanwhile, though also tired, lay awake for quite a while after the soft snores had begun, curled around his Omega as he mulled over all the possible outcomes of his discovery.

Not that he hadn’t been over it several times already since he had spotted it earlier in the day, of course, but he had yet to come up with a viable solution and with such a significant and potentially dangerous problem he could ill afford not to work at it until he’d cracked it. It was imperative, for his mate and for his unborn child.

 

* * *

 

 

“Buggering fuck!”

It was past noon the following day. Sherlock was sitting hunched over the worktable in the kitchen, the supplies John had brought the previous day littering the counter tops, arranged as he imagined he would be in need of them.

John, meanwhile, was sitting in his chair in the living room and he was just about ready to snap the lid shut on his laptop and chuck it into the other armchair in utter frustration. Knowing his luck at the moment, however, he’d probably miscalculate and the computer would land on the floor and break and so he restrained himself. Nevertheless, the urge was most certainly there.

“Anger will get you nowhere.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” the Omega shot back, not really in the mood. He raked his hands over his face, blowing out a breath. “Right...you’re right.” He stared at the screen, which cheerfully showed the mailer daemon message that his email had bounced. Again.

There was more silence then John did close the laptop down and stood up, resolute. “I’m going to do what I should have done in the first place. Go down there and demand an explanation in person. That she can’t deflect.”

“Can’t.”

“What do you mean, ‘can’t’?”

Sherlock held up a vial, eyes narrowed in concentration as he added something to the liquid already in there. “There is a risk of these components separating over time. I need to be here to monitor them and make sure that doesn’t happen. This time it will work effectively.”

“So?” The penny dropped. “Oh, don’t tell me you think you need to come with me for this. Sherlock, the whole point of this is to call her out on firing me for being an Omega as that is not only illegal but completely unjustified and idiotic. Having you hover in the background is not exactly going to help me argue that case, now is it?”

The Alpha’s nostrils flared for a moment at the suggestion that he wasn’t needed but he checked it quickly along with the hint of growl. “Perhaps not but I was under the impression that you would also like your job back. If you show up there smelling like a Beta again, you would take away any validity she might have to her argument.”

“True,” John conceded after a long moment’s contemplation.

The hesitation in his voice caused Sherlock to take notice and he looked up, turning so that he could see the other. He searched his mate’s face and took in his posture sitting in his chair, deducing him, and came to a conclusion. “You don’t want to do that,” he said out loud. “If it had been anyone else, in another situation, you would have been willing, although grudgingly, to just let them think you were still a Beta and that would be an end of it. If not, you would not have agreed to this,” he nodded towards his equipment, “but this...is different. You do not turn tail and run, you do not back down. She has fired you on the grounds of you being an Omega and so you want to show her that as an Omega you’re still worth something.”

John blinked once, twice. Then he smiled, slightly sheepishly but with an edge of defiance. “Well...yes. More or less. Not that I don’t appreciate you –“ He was silenced by a vigorous, dismissive hand wave. “Alright, yeah, obvious – it still matters to me, though.” He paused briefly then seemed to shake himself and continued, strength returning to his voice. “But if I can’t stand up to someone I know who now thinks less of me simply because I am now another secondary gender, then...then it feels like I’m giving into all that bloody claptrap about what an Omega should and shouldn’t be. Then it feels like what I’ve been struggling against has been in vain, like I’ve bloody well _lost_!” He slammed his clenched fist into the arm of the chair, the restrained anger visible in the tremble of his hand.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again several moments later, he was met with the visage of his Alpha standing in front of him, a neutral expression on his features. What was more interesting, though, was the fact that he was holding something in his hands.

It was John’s bomber jacket. Sherlock had picked it up from where he had thrown it the night before and was holding it out to him.

The doctor sat the computer down beside the chair and stood up slowly. He took the few steps forward and held out his arms, letting his mate help him on with the jacket. Then he took a moment to look at the other. “Sherlock?”

“Show her, John,” the consulting detective said. A bony hand came up to caress the Omega’s cheek. “Show her that my mate is a soldier that won’t be pushed around by some two-bit Beta woman.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow move yet again but while on holiday I read a book that had a lot of set-up, too, as well as quiet moments of letting characters be characters and I didn't find that boring at all. So here's hoping you all feel the same here. :)  
> I thought about including the actual confrontation here but I thought I'd best post it at this point.
> 
> Feedback is...well, you know the drill by now :)


	6. Confrontations and Discoveries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John goes to confront Sarah and Sherlock has some discoveries concerning the notebook

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this time you didn't have to wait very long for a chapter. I had a bit of a writing spree when I had broken internet so here you go. A head's up that the next chapters might not be this quick. :)  
> You are still amazing people with your kind words and encouragement, I thank you! <3

It was a rather confusing, not to mention slightly disconcerting, experience to walk into the place where he had been employed until just the day before. It had admittedly been a little while since he had had regular shifts there but to be somewhere where you were once part of the activity and now was on the outside looking in was discombobulating.

The experience wasn’t helped by the fact that there were only a few of his former colleagues who’d look him in the eye when he passed them. It did feed into his belief that there was something going on, that he had been fired because of discrimination.

He headed straight for Sarah’s office and though there was one person who tried to step into his way, a glare and a steely look was enough to make them change their mind. When he got to the door he didn’t bother knocking, instead just going in without consideration for whether she was with someone else.

She was sitting at her desk, bent over paperwork. Her hair was mussed and she was sucking the end of her pen, apparently so deep in frustrated concentration that she didn’t hear the door open or close. Only when he stood right in front of the desk and cleared his throat did she look up.

“Oh!” she said, the surprise evident in her demeanour but so was the sliver of panic. “John. I...I didn’t expect you –“

“No, I’m sure you didn’t,” John cut her off, his voice friendly enough at face value but with a definite undertone. He made sure he had eye contact before continuing. When he did, he smiled in a way that was anything but comforting “The thing is, though, that when you have the gall to fire someone over email, without any prior warning, that person is entitled to a proper explanation. Even more so when attempts to get an explanation over email or phone is repeatedly rebuffed,” his voice lowered and became a tad menacing, “and _especially_ when the reason for the firing is both discriminatory and information that you should not be in possession of.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her voice was steady and calm but her eyes betrayed her.

“Don’t lie to me, Sarah,” he said in that same low tone. “It really doesn’t suit you. Work relation difficulties? Really? You couldn’t have picked anything _remotely_ plausible, anything that didn’t reek of vague excuse? I know you didn’t have the bottle to come out and say the real reason but I would have thought you’d have more imagination at least.” He really wanted to shout but managed to reign himself in.

“John,” she tried, switching tactics. “We can’t have an Omega working here as a doctor. The potential of risk to the patients are too great, you know that.” She attempted an apologetic yet conciliatory smile.

His face, which up until that point had remained relatively impassive, set and locked into what could only be called a stony expression but it was one that indicated that behind the stone the storm was gathering momentum.

“That’s just it. How would you have known? You were never very adept at spotting what gender a person was and as a Beta yourself my scent wouldn’t have given me away to you. One of my patients? No, they wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint it clearly enough at that point to launch a formal complaint.” He put his hands on the desk and leant forward slightly, his expression not changing. “So do tell me who it was and why you were so ready to believe them that you’d fire me over email without even bothering to contact me first, without even bothering to try and verify a claim like that.”

She was silent, just looking at him.

“Well? Go on, then. I’m _listening._ ”

 

* * *

 

 

Back at 221B, Sherlock had moved from the kitchen into the living room. The vials of different concoctions of scent dulling agents, aromatics and various other things had been set to one side for the moment as he waited to see which variations would coalesce into an effective liquid and which would separate.

While he waited for that, he poured over the small booklet John had been given by Moriarty. To an average person, it would more than likely seem very odd that the consulting criminal had given away his methods in such a way but as Sherlock had noted before, genius needs an audience. There was hardly going to be a more receptive audience than the consulting detective.

In its own twisted way, the whole thing had an undeniable cleverness to it. That your secondary gender was tied to your blood type was taught to children who’d just entered secondary school, although the finer points were left out of it, but to work out that it was possible to change that blood type by overriding it with a more dominant one and how exactly to accomplish that...that was clever indeed.

The hormones added to the injection were carefully listed, though there was no explanation of which hormones affected what nor were there any direct overview of the process from conception to finished product. There were hints and lists and chemical reactions but enough details had been omitted to render it almost useless for attempts at reproducing the results. Almost.

The Alpha could spot the missing steps easily enough, absentmindedly adding mental notes and addendums to the information on the page to go along with the ones he’d made on his earlier perusals of the booklet. What worried him was one set of hormones in particular. They looked innocent enough on their own but there was something in the way they had been joined that was wrong for the results it purported to have.

There was a part of Sherlock that was still endlessly fascinated with the consulting criminal and his prowess; that applauded hm for his achievements and his cleverness, for the challenge that he had presented. The larger part of the younger Holmes, however, saw only that all of this research, all of this cleverness, had been used to harm the person most important to him in the entire world. That it had brought them together as mates was another matter entirely and didn’t alter the fact that the changes had been transgressions against John’s person, his very soul and identity. It might as well have gone wrong and have resulted in him losing his doctor altogether. As a result, reading the booklet for any length of time and being reminded of what exactly it had caused would slowly fill his mouth with bile every time he had read it so far as well as send his stomach churning.

This time, though, he noted something else. It was possibly because he hadn’t bothered looking at that section that he had missed it previously but it was not only the process from Beta to Omega that had been documented.

He had suspected from the beginning that Moriarty hadn’t started off as an Alpha and the conversation between them in the derelict school had only cemented that suspicion. The steps taken to get him there had also been put into the notes though they were even sketchier than the ones for the Omega transition. One thing in particular stood out, however.

It took him a moment to locate his phone, only just remembering not to shout at the flatmate who wasn’t there to get it for him, but when he did find it he pressed Molly’s number. After a few rings, the young Omega specialist registrar picked up.

“Hello, Sherlock,” she answered, her voice filled with that curious hopeful tone that never ceased to puzzle the Alpha. “What can I help you with? I’m a bit busy but I’m sure –“

“Molly,” he interrupted in the gentlest way he knew, “you do still have Moriarty’s body, yes?”

“Ehm, yes,” she replied, sounding a little confused. “I do. I was told to keep it in storage after the autopsy but I don’t know why. It’s not like the cause of death is –“

“Thank you, Molly,” he interrupted again. “Could you pull the body out? I need to examine it. I’ll be there in around half an hour.” He paused for a moment. “Oh, and I’ll need to see the report you did on it, too.” With that, he ended the call.

Standing in the living room all on his own, he was again assaulted with an urge he’d experienced for almost as long as he’d lived in the flat but one that had increased exponentially in the last few days.

It was the urge to go and check up on John. To make sure that he was alright, safe and whole. The logical part of his brain knew very well that the former Beta was more than capable of taking care of himself but the Alpha instinct strongly disliked having his mate be away from him, especially when there were so many things that could happen to him out on his own. That he had been kidnapped more than once when out on his own and that he was now carrying their child wasn’t exactly helping Sherlock remain calm and collected, either.

John knew some of this. He was still fairly unfamiliar with the actual, first-hand experience of biological urges, not all of them sexual, that came with being either an Omega or an Alpha but he was aware that they were there and that sometimes they were very difficult indeed to tamp down on. That made it easier for the doctor to bear over with some of the quirks, possibly because he was used to bearing over with the quirks that had nothing to do with biology and everything to do with Sherlock being Sherlock.

Regardless of what his instincts were telling him in regards to his Omega’s whereabouts, there were other instincts as well as his rational brain that told him there was something that was more important. Not only would the examination of the body and the autopsy report, which would be Molly’s usual good standard, yield him a better understanding of what exactly the hormones had wrought on the consulting criminal’s body, it would give him an opportunity to take a picture, send it to his mate and hopefully lay to rest the worries that it had been Moriarty sending those messages to them. Hopefully.

He slipped the phone into his trouser pocket, went to fetch his coat and shrugged it on. The scarf was wound round the long neck and secured then he was bounding down the stairs to the disapproving shout of Mrs Hudson. If he was to get to Bart’s, get what he needed and then make it back before John got home he would have to hurry. Of course he didn’t _have_ to be there when his mate returned but he strongly felt that it would be better that he was, all things considered. He firmly ignored the voice trying to tell him that going to fetch John would be an even greater idea.

 

* * *

 

 

There was silence. At first she didn’t seem to react. Then, after what seemed like an extraordinarily long time, her face crumbled. “Oh, John, it wasn’t my decision.”

“Pull the other one,” he growled, beginning to get fed up with her excuses. “You really expect me to believe that? The least you could do, after everything, is to tell me the blooming truth.”

She swallowed heavily but held his gaze even though it was evident that she didn’t want to at all. “It is. I know it doesn’t sound like it much at all –” John snorted at that – “but I’m not the one that was sent the email. I just got the message that having an Omega as a doctor would spread a lack of trust and confidence in the patients and that was unacceptable so you had to go.”

“And you went along with it, without argument? Just like that?” he asked in a flat tone full of utter disbelief.

“No, John, of course I didn’t,” she said. Her tone was a little more confident and reminded him a lot more of the Sarah he’d first been attracted to. “I’m no great hero – you probably see me as downright weak at the moment – but of course I didn’t just go along with it. In fact, I’ve tried to argue with the higher ups quite a few times over the past few days but they wouldn’t even give me a chance to talk. Then yesterday I got an email to say that either I fired you or we’d both be on the dole.”

It did sound more like Sarah to be arguing than just meekly give in but he wasn’t going to believe her words that easily. After all, she had tried other tactics before telling this. “It sounds good. A little too good, a little too convenient, to let someone else take the blame because you don’t have the guts to face me.”

There was a definite hurt in her eyes. “I can show you the email. The one they got.”

“How did you get that? And why?”

She shrugged minutely. “It isn’t all that hard to get into the email accounts that are logged on to the internal system, if you know how – and have a bit of help. Why? Because I wanted to know exactly what had convinced them.” She leaned forward and cautiously placed her hand on top of one of his. “Regardless of what happened between us, I’ve never wanted anything bad to happen to you. Anyone with the least bit of sense can see that where you belong is with Sherlock and, though I was upset at the time, it’s for the best, isn’t it? That somehow you’ve managed to change your secondary gender...how on Earth did you manage that, anyway?” she asked, the question seemingly pulled from her.

“That’s a long, complicated story,” John replied with a small sigh. “I still don’t quite believe you, Sarah,” he continued, face still drawn though he made no move to shake off her hand. “Let me see that email.”

Looking at him for a moment in silence, she then nodded and beckoned him over to stand beside her. When he did he saw that she took a subtly deeper breath and then another as if she could smell there was something different about him. It could be something else causing her to inhale but then she turned her head and looked directly at him, breathing in again.

“You...you’re pregnant.”

“Am I now?” His voice was carefully void of inflection.

She wet her lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just – up this close it’s really noticeable. Not bad, but...well, even I, as a Beta, can smell the faint traces of it. Well, you know that...and now I’m babbling. Sorry.” Tapping away at the keyboard, she was quick to find the proper email and pull it up. “There we are. Now, I tried to trace the sender but I’m no IT expert but the sender is definitely an assumed identity.”

John nodded, slightly absentminded as he leant closer in order to read what it said on the monitor. What he read made him swallow as his heart sank.

“Any chance you could print that out for me?”

 

* * *

 

 

Molly was waiting for him when Sherlock arrived at Bart’s. She was standing beside a slab that was currently occupied by a shrouded shape and there was a nervous energy about her but that was hardly new and so he dismissed it for the time being.

“Hello Molly,” he offered in greeting. He didn’t bother taking off his scarf and coat. Instead he went directly over to the slab, after putting on the latex gloves he was handed, and pulled the shroud partway off. First the dark hair then the rest of the rather distinctive face became visible. The young woman had closed his eyes when she’d done the autopsy of him. Trying to pay a modicum of respect to the dead or sparing herself the lifeless eyes staring up at her?

Tugging the cloth away some more, he ignored the cleaned up bullet wound in the middle of the chest as well as the small, slightly choked noise from Molly and went further down, past the stomach until he got to the genitals. There he stopped.

At first glance it looked normal enough. The penis was of an average size according to his immediate estimation as were the testicles. The slightly wrinkled patch of flesh at the base where the spongy tissue of the knot would fill with blood to lock the Alpha inside his partner when he ejaculated was a note of interest, however. The consulting detective leaned in for a closer examination. The patch was indeed there but it was rather less wrinkled than it ought to be. If the tissue underneath would swell up like any normal Alpha’s would, there would be a lack of space for the inflation to take place and it would cause some considerable pain, even if it wasn’t going to rupture something.

Sherlock took the organ in one hand and fished his magnifying glass out of his coat pocket with the other. With a bit of one-handed manoeuvring he got it positioned so he could see the veins more clearly. They were hard to see but there were definite indications that some of the smaller veins had indeed ruptured at some point.

“What are you looking for, exactly?” Molly asked. She was standing behind him and was trying to look over his hunched shoulder. The nervous energy was still there, even more pronounced than before and it occurred to the younger Holmes that it might have a correlation with the fact that the consulting criminal had been someone on whom she had pinned some romantic hopes before she had them rather cruelly shot down by the man’s shameless flirting with Sherlock and his disregard for her. That the revelation he was indeed Moriarty had come to her at a later time than most everyone else was more than likely not helping.

Not being adept at sparing other people at the best of times, Sherlock struggled to form a kind reply. In the end he went with moving so she could get a better look. “The corpus cavernosum minor has developed as it should but the corresponding elasticity of the skin is not sufficient for it to expand properly,” he explained, thumbing over it while he spoke. “It could be a genetic fault but...” He trailed off as a thought occurred to him.

“Oh!” she suddenly exclaimed in what sounded like sudden realization. She then darted back and picked up the folder of reports that had been done, flicking through it until she got to a specific one. “I thought I saw something in the toxicology report that was odd,” she said as she walked back to him. “Yes, here it is. The guys doing the toxicology report mentioned it. They don’t usually do it but the hormone levels were messing with the other chemicals in the body so they took a look at them too.”

She was standing beside him again at that point and he turned his attention away from the corpse for a moment to look at where she was indicating. Then he frowned at what he read and turned his full attention to the report. The hormone levels were indeed strongly off for a normal Alpha male but that was not too unexpected if, as Sherlock estimated, the change from Beta to Alpha had been relatively recent. To have all of that change happen to your body was bound to send it into chaos for quite a while afterwards. He suspected that if he managed to get a sample from John he would see the same kind of results.

“This one here,” Molly said, “is what I found strange in particular. I was told he’d been changed to an Alpha and that would explain most of the irregularities but that one there...that shouldn’t be there.”

“Not in such a high concentration, no,” the consulting detective agreed, the frown deepening. “But it does fit...”

“What with?” she asked.

“John was given a book full of notes on the steps necessary to turn someone from Beta to one of the other secondary gender. This particular hormone is only described twice in it, once for each gender. It should not appear in the concentration it does here, though.”

After that he was silent for a good long while as he mulled it over. What were worrying to him weren’t so much the concentration levels in Moriarty’s body but the fact that a hormone not intended for the Omega body appeared in the list of hormones in the change from Beta to Omega.

“Congratulations.”

“Hmm?” he replied absently, still thinking.

“Congratulations,” Molly repeated in the same quiet tone she used the first time, “on your bond.”

“Thank you,” he replied, remembering to flash a smile in appreciation of her regards, though the smile was quite genuine. He completely failed to recognize the set to her mouth and the moisture in her eyes as she said it. “Shall I pass that on to John as well?”

“Oh. Oh, yes, please do,” she said, a tad too hastily and with a brightness to her voice that would register as put on to most other people. “I suppose you’d like a copy of this?” she asked, indicating the reports and changing the subject.

“Yes, thank you.”

She nodded and hurried off.

Sherlock pulled out the phone that Mycroft had originally given to John and turned back to the body. He took a couple of photos of the corpse for John’s benefit; taking care to capture the face well enough so that there would be no doubt that the consulting criminal was indeed lying there, dead on the slab, and not sending out ominous notes and texts.

As he took the last one, close up, there was something about the scent of Moriarty, gone from the body now, the faint traces on the note and the things he had discovered in the notes that clicked into place. Quickly he exited the camera function and dialled John’s number. When there was no answer, his Alpha instincts rose for a moment in protective anger but then he remembered that they hadn’t yet gotten round to setting the doctor’s old number up on what had been Sherlock’s phone. Therefore he then dialled the correct number and felt a sense of relief that the call was answered after only a few rings.

“Hello?” The suspicion was obvious.

“John, it’s me.”

“Oh, god, Sherlock, it’s you, thank God. I...need to show something. It’s....important.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things have happened! And kind of resolution to something, too ;)  
> I have to say that I do not hate any of the women in the show. It hit me as I wrote the first bit of this that it mght come off as that and I don't. I like them all :)  
> I know the 'scientific' discussion is rather vague but that's on purpose. The corpus cavernosum minor doesn't exist but the corpus cavernosum does. By god, my browser history would get me strange looks by now.  
> AIn't got more to say, really. Feedback is treasured and hoarded :)


	7. Bicker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock bicker and work out what being a couple entails for them while they also try to work out who's the real culprit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter out in pretty quick time, I'd say, despite my poor computer giving out on me. I've nursed it back to health and worked hard to get this out now. My birthday is on the 1st so I thought I'd give you this as a sort of reverse birthday-present.  
> Thank you to all for your patience, your kind words, your understanding and your love. You are treasured.

“Important?” Sherlock echoed. “You need to be specific; important how?”

_“Important!_ ” John was definitely not in the mood for having to deal with the quirks of his partner if the snap of his voice was any indication. “I’m on my way home.” Indeed, Sherlock could hear the quiet hum and buzz that was so characteristic of people on the street and the breath that indicated the doctor was walking rather briskly. He felt his instincts rear up again and this time, he agreed with them.

“Why are you walking home?” the Alpha demanded, his voice tinged with the anger and worry that his instincts brought to the fore. “I thought we agreed that you would take a cab to get there and get back again.”

“ _We_ didn’t agree on anything, Sherlock – _you_ decided that that was how it was going to be and I didn’t feel up to arguing with you.” There was a pause that Sherlock after a moment determined to be due to a near-collision with someone else. He heard a mumbled apology before John continued. “But we haven’t got unlimited funds and with me out of a job, we cannot afford to throw money at cabs every time either of us wants to go somewhere. It’s just not economically viable – and you’ve stopped listening, haven’t you?”

Sherlock was in point of fact listening to the other man but at the same time his mind was running through the implications of what he’d found out himself, what John might have found out and what might happen to his Omega out on his own, especially when one considered what had happened before.

To point that out would not be a smart endeavour, however; in all likelihood it would only result in the stubborn fool digging his heels in deeper, if he was any judge at all. Therefore he just kept quiet and let his mate assume that he had indeed not been listening.

A sigh came down the phone line. “I suppose I should be grateful you haven’t changed all that much. Anyway, I’m –“ He was cut off as a thought struck the Alpha.

“John, where are you?”

“I told you already, I’m walking back to our flat and I should be home in what? Fifteen minutes.”

Sherlock did some mental calculations as to John’s whereabouts given that statement and swallowed. “Stay where you are, I’m coming to pick you up.”

“The blooming hell you are. We’ve talked about this and I’m not going to bend on it –“

“John!” There was a steely tone in the baritone voice that got through the doctor’s indignation and shut him up, if only for a moment. “Listen closely; you are shaken from whatever you have read in that email, you have been assaulted while out before now and there are people intent on getting to you. To walk outside, in your condition, is absolutely ludicrously imbecilic. You don’t have only yourself to worry about now.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment then the voice of the Omega came through, very quiet. “That was a really low blow, Sherlock, and quite unnecessary. I _know_ that perfectly well – how could I forget? So don’t you _dare_ suggest that I am not taking the health of our child into consideration; saving the money we will need for it is doing just that.”

“If it is money you’re worried about, don’t.”

“Oh and why not, may I ask? Oh, wait, don’t tell me, you’ve got a trust fund that you will only be allowed access on the condition that you find a mate to bond with and impregnate.” Now John was resorting to his almost patented snark. For whatever reason, the snark had a reassuring, calming effect on the younger Holmes.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock said, careful to let his smile be evident in his voice. “My trust fund was freed up when I had been complete drug free for a year. I believe Mycroft celebrated with a cake after he came to tell me but then again, he’d use any excuse to stuff his gut so that perhaps isn’t telling.”

“I’ll bet. That includes the cigarettes, too, though, does it?” There was now a hint of a laugh in the doctor’s voice.

“Well, what they don’t know can’t hurt them, can it?” The Alpha gave the young Omega pathologist a nod as he strode out of the labs, phone in one hand and report folder clutched in the other. When he was out of earshot of her, he continued talking, walking briskly as he did so. “I am quite serious, though, John. Please get to somewhere that you’d consider safe until I can come and get you. I will not allow anything to happen to you.”

“That’s very sweet of you and all, it really is, but if the ones doing this is capable of finding me in a supermarket that far from anywhere I would normally shop and leaving that note in my shopping bag while I wasn’t looking, I hardly think that it would make a blind bit of difference whether I duck in somewhere or I keep walking. At least out here Mycroft’s blooming cameras can pick up whoever comes up to me.”

“Think, John, _think!_ Not like a doctor, like a soldier! High ground, find an easily defendable position!”

“What, I should crawl to the top of Trafalgar, score a piggyback ride off Nelson?” Another pause as he made an apology to someone. “There’s hardly any place around here that would serve as an adequate defendable position and the ones that would, they’d hardly let an Omega behind the counter or into the backroom, for that matter.”

“John, please!”

“Oh, for the love of – please isn’t...well, it is – please doesn’t unlock every single door that you want opened, you bloody overgrown toddler!” Silence on the other end of the line; a telling one. “Fine, I get it, fine! I’ll go somewhere safer just to please your blasted Alpha instincts.”

“It’s logical –“ the detective protested. He’d reached the street by that point and threw a hand into the air, hailing a cab almost immediately.

“Logical, my arse!” John cut him off quite loudly then lowered his voice after getting disapproving looks. “It’s got nothing to do with anything other than your instincts coming to the fore again!”

“It most certainly has not!” The petulance was evident, at least to John who responded with a small cough that was barely audible through the phone speakers but somehow still managed to be pointed for all that. “Well, perhaps it has,” Sherlock reluctantly conceded, climbing into the cab. “But that is entirely besides the point; we have already – “

“Where to, mister?” the cabbie asked, interrupting without a second thought.

Sherlock paused, shot the man in the front seat a glance and debated for a moment whether to point out that if the other Alpha carried on seeing a male Omega behind the back of his Beta wife, she would end up leaving him despite her own crippling anxieties that had led her to a rather heavy use of pills. He was sorely tempted but he decided on the whole that, given that he still had John on the other end of the line and he would hardly be pleased on top of everything else, it wasn’t worth it.

Instead he contented himself with telling the man where to go in as an authoritative and a condescending a voice as he could possibly manage. The other one might be an Alpha as well but that didn’t mean he was equal to Sherlock in any way whatsoever. The fact that he came from a different upbringing wasn’t the issue; it was that regardless of how the younger Holmes would disregard the accepted gender norms, be they for first or secondary gender, he would never treat his mate with the contempt the cabbie had so obviously done. Granted, John was in his very own category when it came to mates, or people for that matter, but then again he would not have chosen a mate that was not something special. He was quite lucky in that regard.

He shook himself out of his thoughts in time to hear the sound of the call ending. Frowning, he pressed the ‘call again’ button only for it to go straight on to voice mail. He ended it as soon as possible then tried again with the same results. Sending a text yielded the same lack of result.

Soundly ignoring the notion that it was once again his instincts and his worry that was making decisions for him, he turned his attention to sending a text to Mycroft to request information on where and when a camera had last spotted John and to check whether anyone had come close to him. That was one advantage to his older brother sticking his nose in whether it was wanted or not; he could be relied upon to have the needed information on hand when you asked for it. The fact that it would more in all likelihood come with an expectation of repayment was immaterial at that point.

The MMS with the camera feed came a few minutes afterwards, showing a mass of people on the street, which was hardly surprising at that time of day, and he could just make out the head and distinctive ears of his mate among the throng. The quality of the image was rather poor, as was to be expected, but there seemed to be no one closer to John than would be normal for people on an overstuffed pavement. John himself was tilting his head down but what he was looking at wasn’t clear.

Sherlock tried the number once more without success. He then looked out the window, calculating the time of arrival based on their current position, their destination and the amount of congestion that was to be expected at that time of day. The time he came up with wasn’t one he particularly liked but public transport was going to be just as bad and he could not run through the streets of London all the way to where John had been, at least not any faster than the cab could go with the throng of people clogging up the street. So he clenched his teeth and did his best to tamp down on his worry.

It had been considerably easier to ignore the immense worry he’d felt when John had been kidnapped by Moriarty the second time; not only had his anger been boiling so strongly that it had pushed everything else to the side, in finding out where his flatmate was being held he had had something concrete with which to occupy his mind instead of running through the possible scenarios of what could happen to him. It did bother him that he was susceptible to something as pedestrian as worrying, not to mention his instincts, but when it came to John he had long ago accepted that there was no avoiding them. Nor did he particularly wish to when it came down to it.

 

* * *

 

 

By the time they finally arrived at the destination where the cameras had last picked up John, Sherlock practically bolted out the cab door, only just remembering to throw a few notes at the man as he went. His mate was nowhere to be seen on the street but there was a rather swanky café a few buildings down where John might have taken to hide out in.

With its large windows and its fashionable minimalist decor it was a much more sensible option than the other shops nearby whose windows were practically overstuffed with wares on display and as such would offer a considerably poorer overview of who was going past and who was coming in.

So the Alpha strode purposefully towards the café and scanned the room as soon as he stepped inside, not bothering to acknowledge the overly cheerful barista behind the counter who seemed determined to give any new customer a most splendid experience if she could possibly help it. She was obviously new.

He relaxed ever so slightly when he spotted the top of the doctor’s head, bent over but thankfully in one piece.

John had settled at the very back of the room, foregoing the more comfortable-looking booths in favour of a small table meant for two and a chair turned so he had the best overview of the interior and exterior he possibly could. To the casual observer he even looked perfectly at ease as he sipped at the overly large cup of coffee while reading the paper. To anyone who bothered to look even slightly closer, however, it was clear that he scanned his surroundings as much as he did the paper, if not more. His movements were calm and relaxed but as Sherlock drew near, he could smell the scent of his mate and there was a note to it that he associated with the Omega’s soldier mode.

The rest of the scent was still laden with the last remnants of post-Heat pheromones and the notes of pregnancy and the Alpha took a deep breath of that just because he could. He enjoyed that scent regardless but it sent a pang of pride through him to know that he had indeed managed to get John pregnant.

“I don’t know which is worse,” John offered by way of greeting as Sherlock settled himself in the unoccupied chair, though he didn’t look up from the article he was pretending to read, “that people treat me worse than they did before or that they treat me better. The girl behind the counter only charged me for the filter coffee I ordered but this is cappuccino.”

“John.”

“Yeah, alright, not really that important in the grand scheme of things, I suppose, and it could have been an honest mistake, couldn’t it?”

_“John_.”

John did look up at that and startled a bit at the other’s expression. “What is it?”

A look of surprised puzzlement stole over the features of the Alpha. “You do realize that you just cut out in the middle of the conversation? Did you think that it wouldn’t make me suspicious or worried at all?” He couldn’t have kept the smidgeon of hurt out of his voice if he had tried.

John blinked a few times then his eyes creased in an understanding, soft smile and reached over to grab a bony hand in an apologetic fashion. “Of course not; you are many things but you’re not a sociopath, no matter what you’ve claimed and led others to believe. I know you worry and I’m sorry. The battery on the phone died on me so I ducked in here where I knew you’d be able to find me from where I said I’d be.”

“Technically, you didn’t specify your position at all apart from an estimated time of arrival back home,” the younger Holmes pointed out.

“Well, yes, but you call yourself a consulting detective and a genius; surely something as simple as that would be easy for you, would it not?” The Omega glanced around him again as the front door bell jingled but it was a young couple so recent in their love that they had trouble keeping their eyes, not to mention their hands, off each other. A smile bloomed on John’s lips which made Sherlock spare them a glance to see the cause of that smile.

“We can find a Beta woman if you like,” Sherlock offered after a moment where they both just looked at the couple, lost in their own little world of happiness. “I’m certain there’s some that wouldn’t mind.” Saying it was anything but easy.

“Hmm?” John hummed in answer, not really paying attention.

“That you’re bonded to an Alpha already – I’ve read a few articles that say it’s quite fashionable among certain groups of Betas to partner an Alpha or an Omega even when they are bonded. It boosts their social status even if they can never lay a claim on the partner as the bond mate has.”

The doctor’s attention snapped back and he frowned. “What the blazes are you on about, Sherlock? Why would we want a Beta woman in the flat? What’s the point?”

“You have always desired a normal life with a wife and children,” Sherlock said as if it was the most logical thing to bring up. “Finding a Beta woman would seem to benefit that.”

John couldn’t help it; he stared in utter disbelief. It did just not compute in any way. “What the bloody hell did you smoke on the way? What, we see one Beta couple and suddenly you decide to send me packing to some random woman instead of staying with you? What, do I embarrass you as a mate?”

“What? Of course not!”

“Then why would you even begin to entertain the notion that I’d rather be with a Beta instead of you? That anyone else would even remotely interest me? I was hopelessly in love with you for bloody months before all this happened, for crying out loud, why would I prefer ‘normality’ when I’ve finally gotten everything I wanted? You tell me that, you blooming great tosser!”

John dragged in a breath, having expended all his air on his small tirade that he’d managed to keep fairly quiet, glaring at the other as he did so. The Alpha’s face was drawn but there was a hint of stunned surprise in those pale eyes. Then he seemed to pull himself together.

“The data is there to support it,” he replied quietly. “You’ve been pursuing Betas since they day we met, pursued domestic happiness. You did not ask for all of this.” His voice dropped even lower. “I was merely trying to offer you what you wanted.”

All the anger and hurt drained out of the Omega in an instant to be replaced with a growing understanding and a different kind of hurt. Sherlock wasn’t trying to get rid of him for any reason. Nor was he reverting to the facade of sociopath in order to deal with the no doubt to him overwhelming influx of emotion he had been experiencing over at least the last few weeks. He was genuinely trying to give what he thought John would want. It made the doctor’s heart crack ever so slightly.

He was still holding onto the younger Holmes’ hand and grabbed it with his free hand, squeezing the bony appendage tightly. “Thank you, Sherlock, but no thank you. I appreciate the thought; I really do, but to be perfectly honest and sappier than I had any intention of being, you have already given me what I wanted and more besides.”

John swallowed then continued. “You give me the exhilaration, the adventure, the meaning my life didn’t have a lot of before. What girlfriend, or boyfriend, could possibly measure up?” He brought up the hand clasped in his own two up and kissed it gently. “Now you’ve even bonded with me and there’s a clump of cell that’s hopefully going to be a baby growing inside me. Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t have asked for more. I’m very sorry I made you think that I wanted something else, okay? It’s always been you, you daft sod.”

He smiled softly then his face twisted into a grimace. “Damn, I think I almost overdosed on sappiness there. Damn Omega hormones, probably. Could you check that I haven’t developed serious cavities?” He opened his mouth wide.

A smile tugged at Sherlock’s lips and he leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on John’s mouth, whispering a quiet thank you as he pulled back.

“Now, then, perhaps you’d like to clue me into what was so important in that email?”

“You sure you want to do this somewhere public?” He only got a raised eyebrow for his trouble. “Well, alright, then, read for yourself.”

He fished in his jacket pocket for a bit and pulled out a folded piece of paper which he handed over. The consulting detective took it, unfolded it and read it silently, his mouth drawing downwards more and more as he read.

When he got to the end of the paper, he folded it back up very carefully and put it into his own pocket.

“Well?”

“There is no guarantee this has actually come from the source it purports to be from.”

That earned him a snort. “You might be a genius, Sherlock, and capable of some pretty amazing leaps of logic but do give the rest of us lowbrow idiots some credit. Of course the email was checked. So was the IP-address and both checked out – the IP wasn’t even rerouted through other servers in order to mislead. That’s not to say that it couldn’t have been hacked, of course, but if so then they’re beyond good.”

“Anyone who had a close enough affiliation with Moriarty to want to do this would hardly rank among the least intelligent of people – and to put your mind at ease, John, it is _not_ Moriarty who is behind this. I had Molly pull him out to examine...something.” To avoid getting questions as to what exactly that something was, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, found the photograph he’d taken of the body and turned the phone so that the Omega could see.

“Sherlock!” John hissed, attempting to shield the phone with his hand. “You can’t just show something like that openly! If someone sees this, they’ll report you faster than you can say ‘nicked’!”

“Hardly – more likely they’ll think I’m showing you something off a horror show or the like. Even if they do, Lestrade will get us out of any trouble.”

“He can only do so much!” The doctor took a breath. “Thank you, though. Honestly. But that still leaves us with the question of who is...what, exactly? Attempting to avenge Moriarty’s death?”

“You make it sound like some tawdry night time crime drama.”

John snorted again, this time somewhat more unintended. “Professor Plum in the conservatory with the candlestick; if only it was that easy, huh?”

He half-expected his mate to wave him off and declare that easy would be boring but instead he saw the frustratingly elegant face twist into an expression he’d last seen when the Alpha had been talking about what he was going to do to the consulting criminal; a smile starkly contrasted with the storm clouds lurking in the depths of the pale eyes. It made his heart skip and it wasn’t in a good way.

“If an easily solved mystery means no more threats to you or to our child –“

He was interrupted by the loud tone of an incoming text. It was coming from Sherlock’s phone. He reckoned it was Mycroft but when he opened the text, it turned out that it wasn’t addressed to him, at least not exclusively.

_Sender: Unknown_

_Oh, you need your big, strong Alpha to make sure you’re safe now, do you, John? And here was me thinking you used to be strong, used to be a soldier. Now all you’re good for is popping out babies?_

_Sherlock, I have to thank you for the information you so kindly left behind in your chivalrous dash to save your Omega._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another cliffhanger? Are you tired of them yet? ;) ^^  
> This completely got away from me. I have to say, though, that while this chapter did not go the way I had intended at all, I love writing the bicker and the arguments and the two of them just working off each other. It is so essential to them, isn't it? I thank you again for your patience - consider this the calm before the storm, sorta. Things are going to start happening in the coming chapters, I promise.
> 
> Feedback is as always greatly treasured ^^


	8. Whitehall and worries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft gets a visit from Sherlock and John and they get a little closer to some answers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a wait for this - I have enrolled at university again, so that's hogging a lot of time. But this here is a 5k+ word chapter that hopefully makes up for that and for the fact that the next will take as long to get out, probably.  
> Yet again, people are sweet, encouraging and absolutely astounding in their feedback, especially the comments. You keep this a joy.

“What is it?” John asked, not liking the expression on the other’s face one iota but not knowing the reason for it.

Wordlessly Sherlock handed over the phone and watched his mate as he read the text. John didn’t say anything but there was a nerve ticking progressively more as he read combined with the colour draining slightly by the end.

“What information would that be?” the Omega asked quietly after a long moment of silence. “And why does he – or she – know that you’d left it behind?”

Sherlock didn’t answer, not even when John called his name a few times. The distant look in his eyes suggested that he had retreated into his Mind palace but it honestly, to the Omega’s thinking, wasn’t the place for him to do so. For that reason as well the unease the text had reignited in him, he grabbed the hand he had let go of at some point without him noticing and shook it gently. Then he shook it a bit more vigorously and it seemed to work; the pale eyes slowly lost their unfocussed, distant look and turned their attention back on John.

“Hmm?”

John repeated his questions. The Alpha frowned for a moment then shrugged in a dismissive manner.

“The information they might gain from that would be minimal, as only what I couldn’t fit in my coat pocket was left on the seat of the cab, which was some of the autopsy report. Mentioning it would be only for the purpose of rattling you –“

“What the hell do you mean, ‘rattling _you_ ’?” the doctor interrupted but he was soundly ignored.

“ – as have been all of the other messages you have received so far from whoever is sending it.” What exactly he hopes to gain by those messages is somewhat more obscure as one with as much knowledge of you should be well aware that you’re not a man that is easily deterred or frightened. However,” he added, “what is more important right now is to get out of this café and pay Mycroft a visit. He has some explaining to do, I think.”

With that, he rose from his chair with his usual amount of grace despite the speed but actually waited for John to do the same and allowed him to walk past him so that he could hover close behind the Omega as they walked out, John having already paid for the coffee when he ordered.

In other circumstances the fact that the Alpha was hovering so close, to the point that their shadows blended into one strangely deformed one, would have pissed John off royally and he would have been sure to let the other know but he knew that the consulting detective was more than likely feeling guilty for his lacking protection of his mate. Rationally Sherlock would be very much aware that John was more than capable of taking care of himself. It was clear, however, that his struggles to best his instincts were easy in any way or something that he could realistically overcome every time so how could he be blamed?

Truth be told, Sherlock wasn’t the only one who was feeling the effects the secondary gender instincts could wreck on someone. During the moment earlier where he had confessed how much the bond meant to him he had had the strongest urge to be more much sappy and clingy than he had already managed.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t been capable of uttering sweet declarations to other partners through the years; he hadn’t earned the nickname of ‘Three Continents Watson’ just on his ability to leave his partner sexually satisfied, after all.

The difference between then and now was the small fact that before there was a choice in the matter whereas he now felt a strong compulsion towards doing what his instincts were telling him – and he had only the beginnings of those instincts. They had not had much chance to develop, however far his new body might have been developed in other respects, so the effects of them were as yet relatively blunted. Yet they were still having a sway on him.

How instincts might affect someone like the younger Holmes who, despite his claims to be above it owing to sociopathic tendencies, had obviously done everything in his power to suppress anything to do with instincts and the baser sides of his secondary gender John didn’t even want to contemplate. That was the reason he didn’t blame him, at least for that.

They had only just gotten out of the café and a few yards down the street when the Omega had to stop. His arms instinctively went around his stomach and he bent forward as if he had a sudden stomach cramp. The Alpha noticed well before he walked into his mate but stood still as if frozen by uncertainty, not knowing what he ought to do.

“John?” he asked, voice without inflection except for a miniscule tremor denoting the uncertainty to those familiar with him.

“I’m okay,” John answered after a moment, trying and failing to conceal the groan in his voice as he slowly straightened back up. “Just a...stomach cramp, I suppose.” It had felt nothing like a simple stomach ache but he wasn’t going to say that out loud just yet. They had plenty to worry about as it was and a so far solitary occurrence of his insides giving him troubles wasn’t something they should add to that pile of worries.

He turned a bit so he could flash a reassuring smile at his mate. Sherlock looked anything but convinced but didn’t press the issue at that point. He put a hand on the small of the doctor’s back, which was allowed, and threw up his hand to hail a cab, one of which was within quickly but didn’t arrive instantaneously as it normally seemed to.

The ride in the cab was a quiet affair of mostly inconsequential chat but through it all, the Alpha once more had his hand resting on his Omega’s knee. John suspected it was the Alpha side manifesting itself once more but in a way that Sherlock felt would be accepted. It was extraordinarily endearing in its own way.

Something else John noted was a minor thing but it felt significant nevertheless; at no point since he had announced that they were going to see Mycroft had Sherlock actually made any kind of contact with his elder brother to let him know they were coming. Of course there was always the possibility that Mycroft would already know but it seemed unlikely.

When the cab stopped and they got out, John noted that they were nowhere near the area he would have suspected Mycroft worked but then again, he did claim to be only a ‘minor government official’. Someone occupying only a minor position wouldn’t warrant an office in the more obvious areas of Whitehall. That was, if you were gullible enough to believe that he was telling the truth on that. Even if you weren’t, though, it would be far more likely for the elder Holmes to have picked some secluded and safe place. It would suit the behind-the-scenes workings far better, at any rate.

John had of course been into an office where Mycroft resided before he went to the not very safe safe-house but he had known that it more than likely had only been a borrowed office or one of a few that were used. Whichever the case, he reckoned Sherlock knew his way.

They stepped into the lobby of the immediate building and were waved through as soon as Sherlock gave his name to the lady at the desk. She even smiled to him in what John considered to be a little too friendly a way but before the Omega could get his hackles raised over a relatively insignificant thing, she turned slightly in her chair to give him a knowing look. A thumb was raised and she winked.

“What was that all about?” Sherlock asked as he led the way into what seemed like a proper labyrinthine building.

“You call yourself observant and a genius, clever-clogs; you work it out,” John replied good-naturedly. They were turning a corner and soon after they turned another. “You do know where we’re going, right?”

“Obviously.”

What was worrying the doctor at the moment, apart from everything else, was more the prospect of those long legs leaving him behind in the corridors that looked annoyingly similar to find his own way out. It might be considered a bit paranoid but then again, he had experience of the lanky git doing just that. So in response, he quickened his step in an effort to keep up.

Whether the Alpha sensed the dilemma or he just did it on his own initiative wasn’t clear but he reached out without looking and, after a bit of fumbling, grabbed hold of John’s hand with his own. He didn’t say anything but continued walking. The grip that bony hand had was firm.

They traversed seemingly endless corridors until John got the suspicion that they were going through the same corridors more than once. There was nothing to distinguish them as they went but Sherlock seemed confident and so the doctor trusted his judgement.

“Well, well, well,” a voice called out all of a sudden. It caused Sherlock to stop dead and, with his hand still firmly grasped, John did likewise. “If it isn’t baby Holmes – come to plead for your older brother to sort out another predicament, hm?”

Both residents of Baker Street turned to see who exactly was addressing them. The man in question had just exited one door; he was dressed in the mandatory civil servant dress of a three piece suit, brogues and a phenomenally horrid tie, complete with tie-pin and cufflinks. The suit was of a quality cut but the shoes had prominent scuffmarks and the collar of the shirt had some stains.

“Oh, don’t act as if you don’t recognize me,” the man said with a smile as oily and insincere as could be. “It’s been a while but you did always so like to flaunt your little party trick, didn’t you?”

John felt his mate stiffen and his scent indicated that it was out of sheer annoyance. Not that it seemed like he could reasonably be blamed.

“Just because I recognize you doesn’t entail that I am obliged to acknowledge you,” Sherlock answered in as disinterested a voice as he could possibly manage. Even for his standards, it was an impressive effort but it seemed to have little to no effect on the twit. Whether that meant he was particularly skilled in his job or extraordinarily inept John couldn’t decide.

“Is that so?” the Alpha berk answered lightly, giving no indication of having understood the implications of the answer he’d gotten. At the very least he stayed put instead of scarpering. “So just because you’ve somehow managed to ensnare an Omega, you think you’re above acknowledging old acquaintances? That’s not exactly a smart move.”

A muscle ticked just above a prominent cheekbone and a slew of deductions seemed inevitable. Before he had a chance to, however, the civil servant turned his attention to John. “What did he do to trap you then, dear? Dazzle you with his intellect until you gave in or did he corner you in Heat and just take you?”

John felt a muscle pull in his own cheek and his jaw lock. Off all the things to be thrown at them, this was by far the least consequential and yet the most irritating when compared to its insignificance. This pompous, jumped up twat had the audacity to judge not just John but Sherlock as well, openly and freely as if he had every right in the world to do so.

“Oh, you know,” the Omega said in as falsely sweet a voice as he could manage, “he did dazzle me, I have to admit that. Quite swept me off my feet, really – I think it was the first dead body he dragged me to examine then put that knowledge into brilliant use. The charm diminished slightly when he was tried to play clever clogs with a serial killer cabbie, though. Has made up for it since, though, haven’t you, love?”

He gave Sherlock a big smile, a genuine one, then turned back to the oily civil servant. “Whatever the case, Sherlock’s life is none of your business,” he continued, his voice lowering to a much more confident and vaguely threatening level, “and neither is mine. I don’t know you nor does your behaviour really make me want to get to know you.”

“Never say never,” the man said, still not showing any signs of getting the message. “I’m sure I could show you a good time. Bet baby Holmes here is a bit frigid in bed. A mature Omega needs a bit more than just the rudimentary, though, don’t they?”

There was a low sound that John after a moment recognized as the beginning of a growl. It was coming from the consulting detective.

“Sherlock, no. You can’t hit him.” The doctor took a few steps forward to catch up with his mate.

“Why not?” The baritone was surprisingly calm and steady despite the growl still coming from the back of his throat.

“Because you’d be depriving me of the pleasure.” As he spoke, John turned and landed a punch on the jaw of the civil servant who was still wearing a smug smile that faded just before the fist made contact. The force of it as well as the surprise combined to send the man to the floor where he stayed.

The telltale tap of an umbrella echoed in counterpoint to shoes hitting the flooring through the corridor as both Alpha and Omega stood looking at the body on the floor in front of them, John rubbing the knuckles of his hand. They didn’t look up at the person who’d arrived until the echoes died away.

“It was self-defence.”

“Undoubtedly,” the measured voice of Mycroft said. “Might I inquire as to the precise nature of his attack?”

“He insulted both me and my mate and made unwanted advances.”

“Ah.” Mycroft gave a fleeting smile that had just the edge of satisfaction to it. “Unquestionably self-defence, I can see that. Now, I was on my way to something tremendously significant but I suspect that you haven’t come here purely for the sake of it so if you’d care to follow me.”

With that, he turned on his heel and strode back down the way he had come, Sherlock following him a moment later with John doing likewise, keeping pace with his mate.

“Uncanny how he is able to turn up like that when you need it, isn’t it?”

“More like when he isn’t wanted,” Sherlock answered with the petulance that can only come with being siblings, “and it is nothing of the sort. He has spent years perfecting the technique of apparently appearing out of nowhere at just the right moment. That and he abuses the security cameras for all they’re worth.”

“I _know_ that, you plonker, I was just saying something to fill the void.”

“There’s no need to be nervous. We will sort it out.” The Alpha carefully failed to mention the small fact that he himself had several things that was preying on his mind at that moment.

John shot him a glance out of the corner of his eye, keeping his stride even. “What, exactly, makes you think that I am nervous?”

“Quite simple, really; you spoke without there being any need to do so. It is a classic mechanism employed in times of nervousness and seeing as you are perfectly capable of keeping quiet when you are content, it was quite obvious.”

“Uh-huh.” That might all have been very true but he damn well wasn’t going to admit to that. That would be giving Sherlock an easy win.

They’d reached an oak door that to all intents and purposes looked identical to the many they had passed but Mycroft stopped in front of it, pushed the handle down and stepped inside, the other two following close behind.

Once inside, the elder Holmes gestured for the pair to sit down in the two chairs in front of the large oak desk while he himself went behind the desk to sit down in a high-backed chair which looked suspiciously like a Chesterfield. Once seated, he leant forward and steepled his hands in front of his face so that his chin rested on his thumbs.

“Well, then?” he queried, eyebrow raised as he regarded them. “What can I help you with that couldn’t have been sorted out yesterday evening?”

Sherlock, for once, forewent his usual snide remarks, choosing instead to merely dig into his coat pocket, pull out the papers, find the one with the email and pass it across the desk.

“This is the email responsible for John’s firing,” he said by way of explanation. It was a rather an uncharacteristic move, as he’d be well aware that if Mycroft didn’t already know, he would find out soon enough.

The redhead took the paper without comment, read the content and then carefully put it down, a contemplative frown on his face.

“Well?” John asked after the silence had stretched out to a point where he was wondering whether Mycroft had forgotten them altogether. It would definitely not surprise him.

“I expect that you have checked whether this genuinely originates from within these buildings.”

“Naturally,” the younger Holmes replied, showing none of the doubts he had had himself earlier.

“Hm.” Mycroft glanced at the paper again then fixed his brother with a penetrating gaze. “That is a serious allegation, brother dear, and one that I can’t just ‘sort out’. It requires delicate investigation.”

“I hardly think that cold, hard facts can be construed as a mere allegation. It is demonstrably provable that the email came from within a department of the government, more specifically from an IP address located here in this building. Whether that means your systems has been hacked into, quite skilfully at that, or that one of your staff is culpable is not calculable with the current set of data.”

“Interesting, not to mention quite worrying, most certainly but it still doesn’t explain why you have bothered showing up here in person instead of your customary method of bombarding me with texts until you manage to vex me into action.”

“It is always a good idea to diversify in an effort not to become predictable,” Sherlock drawled in reply, goaded into picking up the usual bickering.

A dull thud was heard as John let his head fall back against the leather back of the chair. “Could you two _please_ cut the snide comments out just for once? It’s very cute and all but it’s _not the bleeding time_!” The last words were growled.

The two brothers stared at him, only his previous experience with being at the end of their combined attention preventing him from truly being affected by it. It took a full minute for one of them to speak.

“You’re quite right.” It was Mycroft. “My apologies, John.”

Sherlock, saying nothing, reached over without otherwise moving and placed his hand on his mate’s knee. It caused an involuntary quirk of lips on the blonde.

“Right, then,” John said, turning his attention back to the problem at hand, “so we have someone who is either able to hack into your systems or is already inside of the system as a member of staff. However it might have happened, someone has access to the information of my secondary gender change and has used this as a means of legitimacy in order to have me fired. Why would someone have me fired – “

“Revenge, John, honestly.”

“As I was _saying_ ,” John grumbled, “why would someone want to have me fired using this method? All it would take was someone lodging a complaint against me for misconduct as an Omega doctor without a special license and I’d have been suspended without any prior investigation. They could have just posed as the patient that got offended somehow and then lodged the complaint afterwards. It would do the trick and a lot more easily than this, too. So why do it this way?”

There was a moment of silence as it was mulled over.

“Your point is valid,” Sherlock admitted, “but it would make sense to stay hidden. It has been clear from the start that whoever his behind this do not want his identity to be known, at least not yet.”

“Wait a moment, how do you know that it’s a ‘he’?”

“Quite apart from the writing on the note you were given yesterday was quite evidently male, the traces of scent on it does not correspond with any female pheromones, whether Alpha, Beta or Omega. If you would let me continue, the risk involved in going in as a patient and be recognized....but then he could just send...” The consulting detective’s speech dwindled into a mumble as he gave the actual implications of this some more thought.

While Sherlock retreated into his mind, Mycroft turned and addressed John. “Do you have any more information from your...prior place of employment? It could provide a better insight into who exactly we are dealing with.”

“One of Moriarty’s minions, I would think, unless of course he just has a fan club.” He knew the man was only trying to help so why he was being snarky he had no idea.

The elder Holmes didn’t seem to be particular bothered by it. He raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. “The possibility of a fan club is not as farfetched as one would think at first,” he said and tilted his head minutely in the direction of his brother. Sherlock has his own fan club, in a way, don’t forget. One that you created, I might add.”

John opened his mouth to argue against that but the words didn’t get further than his throat. The man had a point.

“Quite apart from that amusing little aside, it is evident that it is someone of high standing in the network Moriarty built who has a desire for, for lack of a better word, vengeance. That severely limits the number of possible suspects – oh, and would you be kind enough to bring Sherlock back to the land of the living?”

“I can hear you perfectly well, Mycroft. That I choose to ignore _you_ is another matter entirely.” At some point the younger Alpha had closed his eyes while he thought and he didn’t bother opening them again.

“Perhaps you’d be more inclined not to ignore me if I tell you that the reason he wouldn’t have send another is because the person in question doesn’t trust anyone else lower in the hierarchy to do it for him.”

“I know that.”

“If you did, why was there any need for you to stop and think?” Mycroft asked pleasantly with a flash of a smile but wasn’t given an answer. “Of that select group of people comprising the top,” he continued, “there are only a few with enough involvement to want vengeance for what happened to their boss and not just split the criminal empire between them. Which of those it is, however, I cannot say without further investigation.”

He rose from his chair. “I will get Anthea to look further into this matter immediately. I unfortunately do have a prior engagement that is supposed to be taking place – “he glanced at his watch – “right now, as a matter of fact. But thank you for bringing this to me. As soon as we find anything out, I will contact you.”

Sherlock gave a tense nod and something flashed in his eyes that the doctor was at the wrong angle to get a proper look at. He caught his brother’s gaze and held it for such a long time that John got the clear impression that another silent conversation was taking place. During this, the elder Holmes’ attention flickered over to the Omega more than once.

When they had finished, the consulting detective grabbed the hand of his mate and pulled them both upright in a motion that was fluent mostly on Sherlock’s part.

“Thank you,” Sherlock said simply and strode from the room, dragging John along despite the blonde’s attempts to stop.

“Hang on, we can’t just leave like that,” John protested loudly as they moved but was soundly ignored. Tugging at the hand gripping his didn’t make a difference nor did digging his heels in. The Alpha was frustratingly strong for his wiry body when he felt like utilising it.

“We got what we wanted; no need to waste anymore time in this dusty mausoleum of bureaucracy,” was the only explanation given.

“If that’s the case then could you bloody well tell me what information that is?!” John had given up trying to get them to stop and was instead trying to catch up so that he at least wasn’t being dragged along.

Thankfully Sherlock slowed down a bit; enough that he could keep walking while turning his head slightly to speak, at least. “Not here, John. Whoever has been coerced into working with whatever remains of Moriarty’s web after the inevitable powerful that is occurring is certainly keeping an eye on us and it would be patently stupid to discuss anything that could be exploited.”

“What, like the bit of an autopsy report left behind on the backseat of a cab?”

Surprisingly, Sherlock didn’t attempt to avoid that one. “Precisely like that, yes, even though the information there is minimal. Perhaps you’d like to step it up a bit?”

John could hardly argue with that point. They exited the building as fast as possible.

 

* * *

 

 

When they arrived back in the living room of their flat, Sherlock finally let go of John’s hand. The doctor didn’t get much of a chance to try and massage some life back into his by that point very numb appendage, however, as he was enveloped in long arms and felt the tickle of curls against his neck. The scent coming off him had an unusual component to it.

“I’m sorry,” was mumbled against his skin. “I’m so sorry.”

“Whatever are you sorry for, Sherlock?”

“For dragging you into all of this.”

“Hey, hey, hey, none of that,” John soothed, moving the non-numb hand up to cradle Sherlock’s head, burying his fingers in the thick locks of hair. “I thought we already had that conversation. You didn’t drag me into this, Moriarty did.” The comment made no discernible difference on the taller man.

The Omega couldn’t help the thought that had been lurking in his mind all day; even for the intensity of the instincts, the increase in touches and the generally more upfront display of affection in both words and gestures since they’d bonded seemed somewhat out of character. But as they stood there and he felt just how tightly those lanky arms were gripping, it slowly dawned on John that it just _might_ also have a connection to an attempt at assuaging some guilt. In particular guilt over his decision to take off when John was at his most vulnerable. It would certainly make a lot of sense.

“I don’t blame you,” he said softly. He didn’t get a verbal answer but the grip loosened considerably. “I believe you had something to tell me, yeah?” he asked, changing the subject to something that his mate would have an easier time dealing with. “Who exactly is the one doing this and why?”

Something was mumbled against his neck. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

The Alpha lifted his head. “Can’t – there’s too many variables yet. That’s why I asked Mycroft for help in finding out who is helping them. If we can find that person, the paper trail would narrow it down considerably.”

With Sherlock’s massive intellect, it seemed highly implausible that he hadn’t worked out the person responsible already by his usual deductive reasoning and leaps in logic.

“There can’t be that many people high enough in Moriarty’s net to have the necessary resources who’d want revenge for their....well, their _boss_ badly enough to do all this, surely?”

“No,” the consulting detective admitted slowly. “You also have to factor in the similarities in smell that point either in the direction of a stronger connection than merely a professional one or,” he grimaced slightly at the thought, “the chemicals Moriarty administered to himself has also been used on the underling, which places us firmly back at the start. He could have subjected a lot of his higher-ranking...employees to the treatment that he subjected you to, which does little to help narrow down the list.”

It still felt like there was something Sherlock wasn’t telling but John would press him on that later. “Why, though?” he asked.

“When did Moriarty ever need a reason other than wanting to? It could have been used as a bargaining tool as well, of course, or a threat.”

“Dance to my pipe and I’ll make you an Alpha, cross me and you’ll be an Omega sort of thing?”

“Or someone with no secondary gender at all or all three at once. Experimentation with hormones and genetics is not a case of putting Lego bricks together in different ways, John.”

The doctor only made a face at that; it wasn’t so much because he couldn’t come up with an answer but more because of the stab of pain he’d felt in his abdomen that he didn’t want to alert the Alpha to. That it was the second time it had happened was worrying him.

He dimly became aware that Sherlock was talking. “I have to be sure, though,” the baritone voice said, “because when I find out who exactly is responsible, I’m going to kill him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit all over the place, I feel, but I hope it was interesting nevertheless. We will get to know more of the email and other things soon.  
> I realized when writing this that while John struggles with remaining himself, Sherlock struggles with becoming a better version of himself. :)
> 
> I would adore feedback, even if it's to call me a tosser ;) ^^


	9. Threats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock considers what he should do about the various things that threaten his bondmate and unborn child

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am tremendously sorry for the wait of two months, everyone. I have to say, a good deal was done by the time I had the 'joyful' experience of suffering cardiac arrest. You can't write in hospital, though, and my ability to concentrate have been down ever since. So...yeah, sorry about the wait :)

There was silence in the rather untidy flat for a while after that, the shorter man staring at the other, rather nonplussed.

“I would really hope that you’re joking or at least hugely exaggerating,” John finally said, “but then I remember what you’ve already done and I’m not at all certain.”

Sherlock’s face revealed nothing, a fact which didn’t assuage the doctor’s fears in the slightest. Nor did the next words out of his mouth; “I am still perfectly within my rights to eliminate what threatens my family.”

The word ‘family’ sent a shiver of novel pleasure down John’s back but it was tempered by the calm tone of voice while speaking of what was essentially murder.

“Well, yeah, but killing someone...” John said, somewhat hesitantly, knowing that his argument was weak since this wouldn’t be the first man killed to protect him.

To look into the Alpha’s eyes was an odd experience then; there were clearly warmth and love in them even as they shone at their coldest. “I’d destroy the entire world to protect what is important to me. Nothing else matters.”

With that, he turned and headed for the kitchen where John could see that some sort of experiment was in progress. If he had to guess, it was probably versions of the spray that was meant to conceal his smell of Omega. That was at least what his partner had been working on when he had left for the surgery earlier that day.

When he thought about it, John was now rather in two minds about whether or not the spray was actually a good idea. On one hand, to go back to smelling like a Beta, or at the very least not like an Omega, would unquestionably be considerably easier on him, especially in the current circumstances. To be honest, he had plenty to deal with as it was without the prejudices and limitations presented by being that secondary gender.

On the other hand, though, he _wasn’t_ a Beta anymore. He was an Omega, womb and all, and to hide the fact with something like that seemed a bit as though he was ashamed of it and was trying to deny it. While he wasn’t terribly keen, to put it extremely mildly, on the societal expectations exacted on that part of the population, he had nothing against the actual gender itself.

Though, he came to think as he went to locate his computer from wherever it had been hidden and have a bit of deserved quiet time while Sherlock tinkered, to have a problem with the way society treated Omegas _was_ to have a problem with the gender itself, given how intrinsically they were linked. So the question became: _did_ he have a problem with being an Omega?

While John sat and thought about this unexpected question, Sherlock was examining his vials of different scent concoctions out in the makeshift laboratory he was allowed in the kitchen,.

He had to admit he was pretty pleased with the result; of the eight different vials he had been able to successfully produce, only two had separated back into their component parts over the course of the last few hours. Of the six remaining, one was emitting a rather foul stench but the other five seemed as though they would be serviceable. Of course he wouldn’t know their effectiveness for sure until he had taken sufficiently strong samples of John’s scent to apply the concoctions to and so he had to wait. Though he obviously could just ask John to let him swab a few samples, the strongest emanation would be from his nether regions and he wasn’t entirely certain his mate would agree to that. It would be best to ask instead of just taking the sample, however.

“John?”

There was no immediate answer. After trying two more times, Sherlock turned to find his mate sitting in his own chair, one hand gripping an armrest loosely, eyes staring into space. A frown marred his forehead in what appeared to be deep thought while the other was hidden beneath the jumper, though the gentle rubbing was visible even so.

“Penny for them?” the Alpha asked softly as he moved closer, a note of hesitance in his voice.

“Hmm?” John hummed vaguely, clearly not really hearing anything. He blinked a couple of times, which seemed to bring him back to the present. He turned his head towards the other. “Sorry, I was miles away. What were you saying?”

Sherlock paused for a moment. “Nothing important,” he said eventually. He would get the samples later on. Right then other things had to take priority. “I’ll find a suitable midwife and get an appointment,” he offered instead as he walked up behind the occupied chair. He extended a hand down, intending to place on the other’s shoulder, but it was caught and held. John turned in the chair so he could look at the brunette.

“I’m still only a week along _at most_ , so that’s not quite necessary yet. Even taking into consideration that I’m an altered Omega – “ his face twisted up into a peculiar grimace at that expression, which puzzled Sherlock – “who is not exactly in the prime of his life, a week is not enough time for the foetus to develop into much more than a slightly larger clump of cells than it started with.”

Sherlock noticed one hand was still underneath the jumper, but it had stilled quite abruptly when John had started talking. He also spotted the set jaw and the slightly drawn brow that were telltale signs of a defensive ex-army doctor. When he coupled that with the grimace he’d just witnessed as well as the earlier ones where he had also clutched at his stomach, it added to up something that was quite worrying, on top of everything else that was worrying.

He would have to think about what the best thing to do would be. For that he needed a bit of peace and quiet, which would be most acceptably achieved by encouraging the Omega to get some sleep. That way John would also get some respite from what was worrying him.

“Well, I believe that a way to promote the healthy development in this early stage is to get plenty of sleep,” Sherlock said abruptly and purposefully far more cheerfully than he felt. The overly chipper tone did register with John, whose eyes narrowed.

“If it wasn’t for the fact that me being able to tell you’re trying to pull one over on me is a pretty good indicator that you’re not really trying, I would probably be pissed.” He sighed and rubbed the hand that had been under his jumper over his face. “You have a point, of course, but we ought to get something to eat first.”

“You take a nap and I’ll take care of dinner.”

John raised an eyebrow. “Not in that kitchen you’re not. I’ve got enough chemicals rushing around my body at the moment without adding the ones you’ve fiddled with to the mix, thank you very much.”

_“Everything_ is chemicals, John,” Sherlock pointed out, which earned him first a _look_ and then the faintest of smiles that it was a relief to see. “Besides, the likelihood that putting the foil cartons down on the counter surface for a few minutes would make a blind bit of difference is downright ludicrous.”

John blinked once. “You really are trying to fatten me up, aren’t you? First the enormous amount of food you made me eat yesterday and now you want me to eat oily, sugary take-away? That’s anything but healthy.”

“Neither is cooking in the kitchen at the moment. You should sleep soon, a _proper_ sleep, but you won’t do so until you’ve eaten and so the most expedient way to achieve that would be to order something to eat and have it delivered. Do you want Chinese or Indian?”

The blonde glowered a moment. “Chinese,” he then decided. “I’m not sure I could stomach a curry right now. My insides are bit upset right now.”

Sherlock, who was quite certain that what his mate was experiencing had nothing to do with an upset stomach, decided to keep his mouth shut for the time being. It wasn’t that he was hiding what he knew, he just wanted to work it through and be absolutely certain before he brought it up and added another worry for John. Or at least so he told himself, quite emphatically so.

Dinner was a pretty normal affair for the 221B residents; John did the lion share of the talking as well as the eating while Sherlock poked at the food on his plate and made the occasional comment to what was being said, derisive or otherwise. There was one notable difference, however; beneath the table the taller man had hooked one foot around the other’s ankle, gently moving it up and down.

“You go on ahead. I’ll do the cleaning up,” Sherlock said casually when they’d finished, which earned him a look of disbelief from his partner. He chose to ignore it completely, gathered up the plates and with an almost demonstrative air carried them over to the sink where he dumped them.

“Is that it, then?”

“Of course not,” was the reply. “But getting you into bed takes priority.”

“And you don’t think that I’m capable of doing that myself, having only done it most of my life?” John’s tone was slightly annoyed but a smile was pulling at the corner of his lip.

“Not really, no,” the brunette replied loftily, but there was an odd look in his eye that told the Omega there might be still be some lingering guilt lurking deep down. So he relented and turned, heading for the bedroom.

“I don’t suppose you are joining me, are you?” he asked when he got to the door, looking back over his shoulder.

“You suppose correctly.”

John merely shrugged and went inside, pulling off his jumper as he did so. It _had_ been a long day, after all, and he _was_ tired, so he would sleep, if his worries would let him. Let Sherlock be a determined insomniac if he wanted to, that was his choice.

 

* * *

 

 

Despite his word to the contrary, the plates were left in the sink when Sherlock settled into his chair to think a few minutes later, one leg over the other and hands steepled under his chin.

John had deliberately downplayed both times he had problems with his stomach – and that was supposing that there hadn’t been other incidents, when his mate hadn’t been there to see, that had been too small for the Omega to react to or maybe even notice himself – but that did fit in with John’s normal behaviour. It was a terrible cliché, but a doctor he was and they did have a tendency to downplay their own problems.

Would John do so in this particular situation, however? It was certainly more serious than the other times that the former Beta had done so, but then John didn’t know that. He genuinely thought that what he was experiencing was nothing more than an upset stomach, which he _would_ normally downplay. Sherlock only knew better because he had studied the notes they’d been given by Moriarty, after all – and he had the brains to decipher them.

The fact that he knew something others didn’t for once didn’t make him feel all that good; this time it was something that could potentially endanger his mate, not to mention their unborn child, and that was something that left him cold to the bone. A smile without humour worked its way onto the cupid bow lips. High-functioning sociopath, indeed.

There wasn’t a shred of humour to be found in the fact that though the injections of hormones and the implant and growth of the womb had indeed been successful, with no immediate signs that the new Omega’s body was rejecting the implanted object, there were now very clear signs that something wasn’t right inside. He knew it was connected to the hormones controlling the Heat, and he knew that his period of time in which to solve it was limited, which did little to ease his furiously working brain.

The question then became what he could do to prevent what he had discovered from happening as well as how to broach the subject with his partner. He knew he’d have to; he’d learned the hard way that if they didn’t work as a team it would only result in further problems, and this time it might not work out favourably for them.

The clock ticked past midnight while Sherlock sat stock-still, lost in his Mind Palace as he pieced out the possible solutions. Therefore he didn’t hear the first time the phone rang. When he finally did hear it on its second ring-through, he was more than prepared to just continue ignoring it. There was the slim problem that the phone sounded as though it was close to their now shared bedroom and so might be heard by John, who had a habit of always answering the phone, unless he was pissed off. His doctor needed the sleep quite a lot, though, and so the Alpha got up, found the phone that was ringing and managed to press the answer button just before it finished its third ring-through.

“Yes?” His voice was carefully devoid of any tone or inflection.

“Ah, Sherlock – I _thought_ it’d be you that’d pick up the phone. But then sweet little John is sleeping quite heavily, snoring his head off – in your bed, too, no less. Well done, you. Bet that makes your inner Alpha all smug and satisfied, that you’ve turned such a headstrong Beta into a good, loving mate.” There was a strong hint of smirking condescension in that voice, but it wasn’t one that Sherlock wanted to rise to at all.

He didn’t recognize the voice, but it was without question male and very confident to boot. The short, clipped tone, even on the long words, said that he had a history as someone ranking high enough to issue commands, and have them obeyed at that, in a branch of the military – John used that tone on occasion – while the choice of words was that of a man of lower middle class upbringing from somewhere south of London who had been educated somewhere with a higher social standing than what he had grown up in. All of this suggested an Alpha or at the very least a Beta who had fought his way to the rank and status he now enjoyed, but there was something that didn’t quite fit; something that the consulting detective wasn’t able to put his finger on.

All of this came at his usual lightning flash deduction rate. That it didn’t lead to any conclusive clue as to whom exactly the speaker was only a source of annoyance and frustration that he kept inside. If only Mycroft would have gotten off his fat arse and found out who exactly was left in the upper part of the hierarchy already, then he would have solved it already!

“I see your precious little blogger haven’t managed to teach you manners,” the man on the other end of the phone said. “But then if you had manners, you’d know better than to kill someone.” The voice had the edge of a growl to it at the end.

“That is somewhat hypocritical, coming from a soldier turned criminal, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, yes, but I’ve always had orders telling me when and who to kill. Who gave you your orders, detective?”

“My conscience.”

That provoked a laugh, short and almost more of a bark. “Yeah, that’d be it. Nice to know you’re still as delusional as ever.”

“What do you want?”

“Me? Oh, nothing. Nothing at all – got everything I ever wanted right here at the end of my scope. Wonderful thing, modern technology, don’t you agree? Now it really is hands-free mobiles.”

Sherlock froze, eyes darting over to look out of the window, but he couldn’t see much from where he was standing. Even so, he calculated what position would be the optimal one for –

“Now you’re being rude again, not listening to a word I say,” the man interrupted his thoughts. “What would your brother say – or your dear little Omega? Don’t worry your clever little head with my whereabouts, detective, I won’t harm him. Not tonight; not like that, anyway, as long as you promise to stand still for another, oh, five minutes? I do rather like how those trousers pull over your arse, by the way – almost a shame you’re an Alpha. Tara.”

With that, the beep indicating the end of a call sounded. The younger Holmes didn’t move until precisely five minutes had elapsed then he practically darted to the closed bedroom door and gripped the handle. It was irrational, instinctual; there had been no sound of a gunshot or shattered glass, nothing to indicate that John had been shot. He knew all of that rationally but it did little to influence his actions. He had to make sure that nothing had happened to his mate.

_No,_ he realized as wrenched the door open, _it’s never mattered whether or not he’s been my bond mate. John has to be safe no matter what_.

He had to blink a few times in order to adjust to what little light seeped through the blinds from the street lamps, but while his eyes got used to the low lighting, he took in the other details; there was no smell of blood nor a change to the Omega scent that said anything was wrong, and he could faintly detect the light snores emanating from beneath the covers.

He still wasn’t completely relaxed by the time he reached the side of the bed. He reached out and gently shook one shoulder.

“John? John? Are you okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're moving towards some answers ever so slowly ^^ A somewhat shorter chapter than normal, I know, but hopefully the content has made up for that. I would say sorry for the cliffhanger, but given that it was intentional, I can't really. I can't even say the next chapter will be soon, because I don't know. I'll work on it, but I can't promise anything.
> 
> Feedback is as always dearly treasured


	10. Clues and high emotions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feelings have been running high for a while for both Sherlock and John, feelings that will need a release. One way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow...I thank you, very much! The understanding, support and patience you have all shown, as well as still wanting to read the story, has been tremendous and heartmelting! Thank you! You are the absolute best, people!
> 
> It especially helped when I was rehospitalized with a serious infection about a week after the release of the last chapter. Four weeks on intravenous, extremely strong antibiotics, bloodthinning stuff and painkillers - and no leaving the ward. :(

It took a few moments, not to mention a couple of extra gentle, if increasingly worried, shakes, before John stirred beneath the cocoon, muttering quietly.

“John!”

The effect of the name being more or less barked was instantaneous; the former soldier’s eyes shot open and he would have shot straight up into an upright position if not for Sherlock’s grip on his shoulder, preventing them from colliding before allowing him to sit up properly.

The Omega instantly focused on his mate, almost no trace of sleepiness detectable in his eyes as he searched the other’s face. “Sherlock? What’s the matter?” You had to hand that to John; to go from fast asleep to instantly alert and worried was a good mark of a soldier.

“Why should anything be the matter?”

“Why? _Why?_ Because you wake me up in the middle of the night, shaking me like hell to do so, when you yourself have ushered me into the bloody bed to begin with, that’s bleeding why!”

John glared and Sherlock found himself glaring back, attempting to will his mate to understand without the Alpha having to state it explicitly. He had plenty of emotions roiling inside of him at the moment as it was and he wasn’t at all sure whether he’d be able to keep a proper lid on them if John felt like pushing his buttons. Annoyed as he was it wasn’t unlikely at all.

The silence only seemed to serve to make the blonde angrier, however. His eyes narrowed further and his hands curled into fists. He opened his mouth, but just before he could say anything, he was interrupted by his mate, who made up his mind on the spot on whether to say anything.

“He...called, on your phone. Just now.”

“ _What_?” That got the Omega’s attention; he looked startled and more than a little uneasy, even though he was attempting to hide it. “Why?”

“Another threat, with the addition of a tangible backup in the form of a sniper rifle.”

John didn’t bother asking whether he had seen the rifle himself or not. It was Sherlock and if he said there had been a firearm, there had been. The threat to his life he didn’t worry about at that moment. It could wait a bit.

“I don’t suppose you got his name or anything?”

“No.”

But the doctor wasn’t stupid. “Alright, then,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “what _did_ you get?”

“Male Alpha or unconventional Beta beating the odds, lower middle class lout with enough smarts as well as Alpha machismo,” Sherlock rattled off, sneering slightly at the last bit, “to make it to the rank of colonel or at the very least major. He was dishonourably discharged and angry about it, too, which can explain why he chose a life of crime as his new career.”

“Definitely ranking high in Moriarty’s organisation, then,” John commented, a thoughtful frown on his face. “Any Alpha who makes it as far as major or colonel in the Army won’t be content with just being a lowly thug in a criminal gang.”

“That and being a superior marksman would elevate one through the ranks fairly rapidly.” It was far from obvious, but the Omega managed to spot the swallow at ‘marksman’, the Adam’s apple bobbing quickly. He then saw the tightness of the jaw that he hadn’t spotted before.

“Sherlock?” John reached out a hand, letting his fingers stroke over the stupidly soft cheek. The consulting detective closed his eyes at the gesture.

“So very...it hurts so much...to feel...” The words were quiet, almost inaudible as they were forced through shut teeth.

John swallowed past a lump in his own throat and leaned forward so that he could pull his partner to him. “I know, Sherlock, I know,” he whispered, running a hand up and down the back of the other as they embraced. “Would it be better not to?” he asked after a moment, on the inside dreading the answer.

“No!” The word was spoken quickly and vehemently. “No. Never, John, I would never do...I just...” he trailed off and held on tighter.

“I know.” And he did. He knew so very well how difficult his mate was finding not so much the feelings themselves, but the sheer amount of them flooding in. John wasn’t the only one who was suffering from both hormonal and emotional overload at this point in time.

They stayed like that for what felt like ages. The Omega started feeling a slight twinge in the small of his back before the brunette lifted his head from its resting place on top of John’s head. He brought his face down so they were at eye level and then surged forward, capturing thin lips with cupid bow ones. The force and surprise sent the doctor backwards on the bed, landing on the mattress with a mate plastered to him as he kissed the living daylights out of him. Not that either of them particularly minded.

 

* * *

 

 

It was creeping well towards noon the following day before John made his way out of Sherlock’s bedroom – no, _their_ bedroom – and into the kitchen where, not to his great surprise, the dishes were still in the sink. There had been water run over them but otherwise they hadn’t been touched. Yawning he turned on the water, waited for it to heat and then set to work cleaning them. It gave him something to do while he thought.

They were closer to identifying the man who had been stalking and threatening him now. Or were they? Unequivocally they had far more intelligence on the man than they had previously but that didn’t necessarily translate to actually locating him or pinning down who he was.

A man employed by Moriarty who held enough animosity towards both Sherlock and himself for the fate of the Irish Alpha madman to warrant the trouble he had gone through to menace them in the last couple of days. A man of a military background who’d turned to a life of crime and who was more likely than not an Alpha himself. Wouldn’t another Alpha welcome the fall of the boss so that they could rise to the top themselves? It was Betas who was known for their tenacious loyalty, not Alphas. Of course there were exceptions to the rule but a display of loyalty to the extent that the man’s actions bore witness to were almost unheard of in Alphas.

John heard a muffled groan drift out of the bedroom as he tackled the rest of the dinner service they’d left out. It was followed by another, louder exclamation, which made the blonde smile at first and then pause. It was indeed very rare to see Alphas actually express such deep loyalty, even when they might feel it, except....Except when they had a mate.

Just then the Omega’s thoughts were interrupted by an exclamation of ‘John!’ from the bedroom and then the thudding of footsteps over the floor. He looked up and turned his head to see the younger Holmes staring at him from the living room, hair dishevelled and chest going as if he’d run some distance. Also he was stark naked.

“Best put something on in case Mrs. Hudson decides to drop in,” the doctor commented as he turned his attention back to the job at hand.

_“John_.” It was uttered in a low growl, the thudding resuming as Sherlock stalked his way towards the kitchen. Once there, he grabbed hold of the shorter man and turned him around to face him, pale eyes taking in every possible detail that he could. _“Never do that again!”_

John’s brow knotted in honest confusion. “Do what?” Then it dawned on him, looking past the anger in those fine features to the desperation and anguish underneath. Sherlock had woken up and the bed had been empty. “Shit. I’m sorry, Sherlock, I didn’t think.”

The brunette still didn’t look at all convinced; his expression still the same, his nostrils flaring and jaw working all indicated his instincts clearly coming to the fore. “Look, I’m alright. See?” He grabbed one bony hand, intending to pull it up to feel his heart beating, but instead he found himself settling both their hands onto his stomach beneath the t-shirt he had slept in.

Logically, he knew that there would be nothing to feel there. However, that didn’t stop his hand, like it had the day before, from wandering down to caress the skin underneath which lay what would be their child. It was calming; reassuring in a way that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with yet.

The effect that it had on Sherlock was just as remarkable. As soon as he touched the skin, the anguish faded away from his expression to be replaced with a look of wondrous delight that was normally only seen on that face when he had a particularly interesting case or fascinating specimen in front of him.

“See? I’m fine. _We’re_ fine.”

Sherlock’s other hand came up to also touch the stomach, carefully and reverentially stroking over it which made John shiver. The tiny, pained moan he tried to suppress a minute or two later got the Alpha’s attention, though, and his expression changed from delight to worry very fast.

“Where exactly does the pain come from?” Sherlock demanded. His stance changed to alert and somewhat aggressive, but his hands didn’t leave their place. They did, however, press into the flesh in a way that the Omega found disconcerting, quite apart from the other things.

“What pain? What are you on about?”

“Don’t lie to me, John. The _pain_. The one in your abdomen or, to be more specific – “ here the consulting detective did that little head tilt he used when explaining something obvious to the moronic surroundings – “your womb. The one you’ve experienced several times now, escalating each time, and have been stupid enough not to tell me about.”

Not only did that sort of comment put John right on the defensive but the hands now gripping onto his hips _hurt_. Both would have contributed to the sharpness with which he delivered his answer. If that’s going to be your response to whenever I feel ill, why the hell would I tell you? And it’s just a stomach ache, nothing to do with my womb at –“

_“Wrong!_ ” Sherlock was nearly shouting, face close to that of his mate and eyes boring holes into him. “So very wrong, John, how can you not see it? You’re a doctor, for heaven’s sake, open your eyes! That pain has nothing to do with a stomach upset or whatever else utterly imbecilic nonsense you’ve managed to convince yourself it is.” One hand let go of the hip to instead shake a shoulder. “Listen to what your body tells you!”

_“I don’t **know** what my body is telling me_!” John bellowed in response, staring back at the other, determined not to move an inch. Screw the Alpha power display! “I have no _fucking idea anymore_ what’s my own body, what’s bleeding foisted Omega instincts and what is just the whole bloody mess working against me!” His hands went up to Sherlock’s shoulder and he pushed with all his might, which sent the taller man stumbling backwards. “Don’t you dare go all high and mighty, superior Alpha, everyone-else-is-so-bleeding-stupid-for-not-seeing-anything _Sherlock fucking Holmes_ on me, you _bastard!”_ He moved forward, intending to push at the other again. “ _You_ are the reason this even happened to me in the first place!”

Sherlock’s face, which had been twisting more and more as his anger built and his Alpha instincts started to take over, suddenly lost any hint of colour it had possessed. The anger wasn’t gone but it was mixed now with utter disbelief and incredible hurt, as if John had actually physically lashed out at him and landed a substantial blow.

He opened his mouth to speak but all he managed to get out was a small, choked noise from the back of his throat. At his sides his hands clenched and unclenched and, due to his lack of clothing, it was clear to see that he was shaking ever so slightly and it didn’t seem to be from cold.

John readied himself for another verbal assault, deliberately and overtly disregarding the feeling that to be defying his Alpha like that was reprehensible and wrong, but a glint of wetness caught his eye.

The Alpha was crying; big, round drops were gliding silently down fine cheeks in a continuous stream, dripping from the chin unheeded.

That stopped the doctor in his temper in a more effective way than any amount of arguing, anger or violence ever could. Sherlock didn’t cry. Granted, there had been far more instances of true, uncalculated emotions from him since the whole mess started and they hadn’t all been confined to the ones traditionally associated with the Alpha psyche. For all of that, though, John would be hard pressed to think of a time where his mate had been genuinely affected by something like this to the point that he wasn’t even noticing the fact that he was shedding tears.

Then the reason for the younger Holmes crying hit him. He had openly accused Sherlock of being the one responsible for John having been turned into an Omega. While that was technically true, seeing as without the consulting detective he wouldn’t have been of any interest to Moriarty in the first place, it didn’t change the fact that Sherlock had in no way, shape or form actively, or even indirectly, intended to push John into the situation where Moriarty could grab him for his own purposes. Yes, they had had a row which led to John storming out of the house, easy for the plucking, but that wasn’t indicative of anything. That could have happened while he was out shopping for whatever the brunette felt he needed for the current experiment he was concocting at the given moment.

Bottom line was that he had thrown one of the few things that Sherlock, if he knew anything about the man, feared and had been wrestling tremendously with in his Mind Palace since it all began right in his face. With no justification other than his temper born out of the worry and fear he had himself, either, and that was _shameful._

More than the prejudices, the uncertainty and the weakened status, that was what he truly feared about being an Omega; to be fully at the mercy of his emotions in almost every situation. What he defined himself as, what John Hamish Watson was, was intimately tied up to being a Beta. But he wasn’t a Beta anymore. He was an Omega with the mindset of a Beta. He had to examine and determine which part of each of the secondary genders that would go to make up what John Watson was _now,_ not what he had been.

What came before all of that, though it was intimately tied into it, was the attempt to fix what his words had wrought.

In his mental absence Sherlock had started to pull in on himself, slamming his mental defences back into place one by one. It wasn’t obvious if you didn’t know the man, but John could tell he had become more distant and withdrawn in that short amount of time.

John opened his mouth to speak but then closed it again. No. He might have caused it with words but he wouldn’t solve it with just them. So instead he chose to walk up to his mate, careful to mind the distance so that it wouldn’t provoke an unwanted reaction, and stand before him in a pose that was as open as he could manage.

There was no immediate indication that Sherlock had registered that John had moved at all. Still trying not to provoke Alpha instincts, or worse, Holmesian behaviour, the Omega grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and started to pull it off. Once he’d dragged up over his head and off, he threw it to the floor and moved his hand up, past the mottled wreck that was his scar and on up to the place where the Alpha had given him his bond bite. He slowly and lightly moved his fingers across it then did it again, all the while hoping that that would communicate the importance of the bond to him and gain the attention of the other.

It did. Sherlock’s eyes focused and zoomed in on the indentations that his teeth had left, seemingly not seeing anything but them. A small noise issued from the back of his throat.

“I’m truly sorry, Sherlock,” John said softly, trying to impart the sincerity which he felt. “I did not mean that and I’m sorry for saying it. This is not in any way your fault.” He paused, at a loss for what he should say. After a moment, he continued, “I love you, Sherlock, from the bottom of my heart.”

If he had expected the Alpha to rush into his arms or grab him and shake him, he would have been disappointed. The man looked at him, blinking slowly as the words seemed to sink in. Then he collapsed onto the floor; the knees simply buckled underneath him and he sank onto them with a heavy thunk then he sank backwards a little.

“Sherlock?” John’s voice was suddenly full of worry. He moved forward the last few steps and sank down beside the other. He didn’t attempt to touch him. Not yet.

“I’m going to lose you.” It was hard knowing which was worse, the words themselves, the completely dead way they were spoken or the certainty that voice held.

“You what? What the bleeding hell are you on about?”

Sherlock turned his head towards John and the doctor almost wished he hadn’t. The expression seemed just as dead as the voice had. “I am going to lose you. I know that. One way or the other, I will lose you. Both of you.”

“Why would you say that, love?”

“Because it’s true, obviously.” The fact that it was the usual kind of remark the younger Holmes would make didn’t help matters all that much and nor did the fact that he turned his head downward, as if he didn’t want to face his mate.

John took a deep breath. He could feel the anger bubbling just underneath the surface again but he did his best to keep it in check. Getting angry would only put them right back to square one. “If you think...if you _really, honestly_ believe that I’d walk away after all the shit we’ve been through or that I wouldn’t fight with everything I ever had to keep alive, then...” He paused, trying to find the right words. “Then Mycroft really is the smart Holmes brother.”

A sound came from Sherlock’s throat again but this time it was a lot more reassuring. It was an unbidden snort. Something was mumbled that sounded an awful lot like ‘as though that would ever happen’ before the man raised his head again. This time, the eyes held just a tinge of their normal spark.

John leant forward so he could lay his hand gently on the back of the other’s neck, pulling until their foreheads touched. “Do you believe me?” It was important to him that he knew. “Do you?”

The Alpha nodded, slowly and carefully so that there would be no doubt, his movements felt more than seen due to their proximity. “Yes, John. Yes.”

The doctor blew out a breath he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding. “Good. That’s...good.” A small, rueful smile found its way onto his lips. “Now would you tell me what you meant by pain? Seeing as I’m an idiot and all.”

“You’re _my_ idiot.” The words were endearing, not least for the sincerity with which they were spoken.

His smile turned into a full-blown grin at that. “That I am, Sherlock. For as long as you’ll have me.” He felt a frown begin to form. “It’s a figure of speech, you plonker.”

John leant back, put his hands on his thighs and got up from the floor with a small groan. He then held out his hand for the other to take and pulled when a bony hand grabbed onto his arm. When they were both upright once more, Sherlock stood and regarded his mate for a minute, an odd look dominating his features.

The doctor was just about to ask for an explanation again when there was a knock on the door.

“Coo-ee, boys! There’s a packet for you.”

“Coming, Mrs. Hudson!” John hurriedly picked up his discarded t-shirt, threw it on and went out the front door, careful to shut it right behind him so the poor woman wouldn’t see...anything.

It took a while for John to come back into the flat and when he did, it was evident something was not right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should apologize for again leaving it on something of a cliffhanger.
> 
> I knew they had to have a fight at some point, but that it wouldn't dominate the last part of the story. We've been there, they're moving past that and I wanted to show that they'd done that. ...Why am I justifying this? Perhaps because it's not a great advancement story-wise apart from the clues on their stalker. Thank you everyone for sticking with me.
> 
> Next chapter might take a bit - apart from everything else, a very lovely person has commissioned me, so that has to take priority. Just a head's up.
> 
> Feedback is...you know the drill by now. :)


	11. Closer to answers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock finally tells John just what he discovered about the chemicals Moriarty injected into him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the wait in chapters, but time has been used to write a commission as well as get a whole lot better. Thank you very much for your understanding, everyone! That and your sweet support keeps me going <3

He was carrying a box in his hands, but he held it at arm’s length as if he wanted to be as far away from the box as possible. One could be tempted to think that it was a bomb, though it wasn’t.

Sherlock kept silent as it was brought into the living room and deposited on the coffee table amidst all the mess it otherwise held, but his eyes took in as many details about his mate as he could. John was trying very hard to remain unaffected, but, as he sat down on the sofa, there were indications that with everything else, his nerves were severely rattled.

It was with slow, minutely trembling hands that John opened the packet with the scissors he’d eventually located from somewhere. Pulling the cardboard folds away he took a deep breath and peered into the box.

Which contained baby clothes; it was filled to the brim with bodysuits, little socks, rompers and even, on top, a little plush toy. John dug through it, looking for anything that indicated foul intentions or sinister allusions, but reached the bottom without finding anything.

“John.”

He looked up to see Sherlock holding a piece of paper in his hand and held out his own hand for it. The Alpha instead chose to open it up and read out what was written on it.

“ _Dear Sherlock and John,_

_Congratulations on your bond and your little bundle of joy to come. I know it’s early and that you should probably have something just for the two of you instead, but that’ll have to wait. I wanted to get the baby just one thing, but I guess I went a little overboard. Hope you can find a use for it regardless._

_Take care_

_Greg_

_P.S. No, this doesn’t mean you’re allowed back on cases yet, Sherlock.”_

The consulting detective looked up from the paper and over to his mate, whose mouth had dropped open slightly in stunned disbelief. Not that he could be blamed; after everything, it was certainly not the anticipated thing.

“John?”

“I...I don’t know...that was not what I was expecting,” the doctor managed to stutter. He blinked, then started to laugh, a laugh that seemed born as much out of sheer relief as any actual humour. “He even went and got gender neutral colours!” The laugh only grew at the thought.

It managed to make the Alpha smile as well, happy to see his mate laugh so wholeheartedly. “I suppose that it is thoughtful, but it’s also rather pointless,” he commented as he sat down beside the other man. “Besides, no child of mine is ever going to wear lilac.”

“Says the man who...favours aubergine...shirts!” It was evidently difficult, but John managed to wheeze it out while still laughing. “Oh, god...Stop...It hurts now...” He clutched his sides as if to tamp down on the laughter and after a few more moments it petered out.

A broad, bony hand was placed on the small of his back and John leant into the contact, relishing it. He then grabbed hold of the other hand and squeezed it. “Our child’s going to look wonderful no matter what, including what colour its clothes are,” he said.

_Our_ child. That particular turn of phrase was very deliberate. After everything, it was a quiet ask for confirmation that they were together in this, come what may; that all of this struggle and grief wouldn’t break them apart. Nothing would break them apart when they had this between them.

Sherlock smiled softly, understandingly as he brought up the hand in his up to brush the knuckles against his lips. “ _Our son_ will not only look wonderful, John, don’t be silly.” The ask was understood and confirmed.

“Our son?” John queried, slightly bemused. “A bit of wishful thinking there, is it?”

“Not at all,” the younger Holmes replied with an indignant huff. “It would be just as welcome and loved if it was a girl you were carrying, but it is a boy.”

The Omega shook his head. Not because he was disagreeing, but because he found the notion that Sherlock could be so categorical about something like that this early in the process rather amusing, even when you factored in the consulting detective’s skills.

They sat there in silence, mostly because John was waiting for Sherlock to return to the subject that had sparked the whole argument in the first place. The Alpha seemed content to be silent, though, staring off into the distance, more than likely gallivanting around his Mind Palace.

Since it was something that the doctor very much wanted to know, he wasn’t just going to let the subject drop. “You were worried about something in connection to that,” he prompted, squeezing the hand in his again to draw the other’s attention.

It worked after another try. “Hmm?” Sherlock hummed in response as he slowly returned to the outside world.

“What has got you so worried about my...my womb?” John pressed. “Something you found in the notes?”

Sherlock drew in a deep breath, turning his gaze to stare straight ahead. “Yes,” he began. Interestingly, though it was clear he was readying himself to explain something, he didn’t seem to be gearing up for his usual slew of deduction show-off. He then took another breath from the bottom of his stomach and gave John’s hand a squeeze in return.

“Yes,” he repeated. “The evidence that can be verifiably gleaned from the notes themselves is sketchy at best, which is why I did not inform you of my findings initially. There seemed to be more pressing matters that required attention and worry at that point in time and there was no point in making something out of what could end up being nothing at all.” He caught John’s eyes with his own, looking into them with an earnest expression that frankly scared the Omega ever so slightly. “Then you kept getting those abdominal pains you were so quick to dismiss as nothing more than a stomach cramp – “

“Hey!” the doctor interrupted. “Honestly, how can you blame me? Without your added level of knowledge, that _is_ the most logical explanation.” John pointed out as calmly as he could manage, tamping down on the indignation threatening to rise.

“I never said anything to the contrary. Now, if you’d let me continue. The relevant data might have been vague and buried amongst a lot of other information, but when taken in conjunction with the pain you’ve had, it becomes a far clearer picture.”

“How so?”

“If you wouldn’t keep _interrupting_...the data relates to the amount of hormones administered to the body in those injections, in particular the hormone that regulates the reproductive aspects of an Omega. A lot of that hormone is needed in order to let the womb attach and grow without it being rejected as a foreign body by the body itself, quite apart from the many other functions it facilitates for a born Omega and subsequently a changed one, Heat being chief among them. So far that does not pose a problem for you. But given that you are a changed one, your body does not know precisely how much it should produce on its own after the initial injection. Therefore, there is a very high probability that at the point that your body needs to produce the hormone itself, it will produce an excessive amount, which eventually could have dire consequences.”

As Sherlock took a breath, John considered the fact that even though his mate was monologuing as he showcased his findings, he was being rather more considerate in his phrasing than he normally would. Not only did that give another clue to the depths of his regard, but it also showed how rattled by all of this he actually was. Seeing as nothing normally visibly affected the man, this was both heart-warming and very troubling, even when taking the Alpha instincts into consideration.

Before he had a chance to speak up, though, the consulting detective continued.

“Not only is there the risk of pain as the body attempts to find the right level, but if it overshoots sufficiently and essentially overdoses, it could…” Sherlock swallowed, his Adam’s apple visibly bobbing. Only then did he turn his gaze back towards the other. “It could force you into another Heat, which would – ”

“ – Jeopardize the baby if the womb ends up rejecting it to make room for another,” John interrupted. He had visibly paled.

Normally, the Alpha would have disliked the interruption and would have voiced his displeasure. This time he only nodded before he replied. “Yes. It could also damage you due to ripped internal walls, excessive bleeding or…” He stopped talking, but the unsaid ‘or other, worse things’ was clearly audible nevertheless.

For a moment they just stared at each other, reading the same worry and fear in the eyes of the other as they felt themselves. John in particular now understood the odd expressions that had stolen over the younger Holmes’ face several times in the previous few days. It hurt to think that Sherlock would have kept his knowledge to himself if things had worked out just slightly differently and that hurt only increased with the knowledge that Sherlock had been fighting all of that on his own. No wonder he’d thought he would lose both John and the baby.

“I’m so sorry, love.” It came out as a whisper from the Omega.

Sherlock looked at him as if he’d said something completely nonsensical. “What on earth are you sorry for?”

“Just…everything. I should be a better mate.”

The Alpha blinked in rapid succession. “Are you honestly apologizing for something like that after all the times you’ve dealt with me and everyone else? _Really_ , John?”

“Yeah. I guess I am. If I was a better mate, you wouldn’t have had to deal with stuff like that alone…” He trailed off, brow furrowing slowly in realization. “I’m talking rubbish, aren’t I?”

“Completely and utterly.” The statement was softened with the twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Right. Then you have a plan for what we do now?” There was no immediate answer. “Sherlock?”

Sherlock grimaced slightly. “It’s…difficult,” he admitted. “There are, admittedly, a few ways that could potentially work to solve the problem.” He drew a breath. “But they are all fraught with risks that cannot be avoided without tests and I have no intention of testing them out on you without being absolutely certain that they are going to work without any sort of risk to either of you.”

John was frowning deeply at that point. “But we can’t just let it develop either.”

The Alpha closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “No, we can’t.”

The implications of just how caught they were between a rock and a hard place slowly sank in as they sat there.

“Can we…is there…I could be kept under observation,” the doctor said eventually. The last words came out rather matter-of-factly, as if he’d made up his mind while he was speaking. “If we talk to Mycroft, perhaps he could fix up something so that we could monitor my progress in relation to this batch of hormones my body is going to produce. We’d know what was happening and would be able to do something if anything should happen.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“You are not to be put in some sort of laboratory for Mycroft’s underlings to poke and prod you as they see fit and you are most definitely not going anywhere out of my sight.”

“I didn’t mean a laboratory and what part of the definition of ‘we’ don’t you get?”

Sherlock fixed his mate with his trademark ‘must you be such an idiot’ glare. “As if any research scientist would allow a territorial and possessive, not to mention worried, Alpha anywhere _near_ something as extraordinary as you while they conduct their ‘research’.” John didn’t have time to bask in the compliment for long, as the other was ploughing right on. “No matter the level of influence that Mycroft wields, they would insist on taking you away to somewhere sterile and ‘safe’ where they can keep a ‘professional’ eye on you while they prod and poke and take an unnecessary amount of ‘samples’ purely to satisfy their own scientific curiosity. I am not allowing such a thing.”

“You…do realize just how stereotypically Alpha you sounded there?”

“Of course. I am well aware of when my secondary gender instincts take over. Whether I choose to let them or not is another matter entirely.”

“So when you were completely drugged on hormones during my ‘mock’ Heat, breaking down a door and practically assaulting me, that was all intentional?” The tone was unsurprisingly slightly disbelieving, but also a bit wry.

“Perhaps…I am not in absolute control all the time,” Sherlock admitted grudgingly after a pause, with a hint of a grimace.

“Right. At least you are willing to admit it, that’s progress, I suppose. But that still leaves us with a problem.”

“I _know_. I am _working_ on it.”

“Now, now, Sherlock, there’s no need to snarl at your mate like that when he raises a perfectly legitimate question that has him worried just as much as you.”

The voice was coming from the doorway of the flat. They both turned to look at the owner of the voice, though in Sherlock’s case it was more of a scowl than anything else.

“I wasn’t snarling and even if I was, it is none of your business!”

“Beginning the stereotypical macho Alpha behaviour already?” Mycroft said dryly as he moved inside the flat, pushing the door closed with a nudge from his umbrella. “Perhaps it would be best to ship John off to someone else; one who knows how one _should_ treat a mate, whatever the secondary gender, or possibly even the scientists you so despise.”

The younger Holmes shot up like someone had fired him out of a cannon and got right into his brother’s personal space. “You wouldn’t _dare_!”

Mycroft wasn’t fazed in the slightest. “I would,” he replied calmly, not withdrawing an inch, “if you fail to take care of my brother-in-law and my unborn nephew. Then I would without a second thought.” The brunette growled at that.

John felt both a pain that Sherlock was behaving like that and a strange sense of warmth at the display of caring from the side of the ginger Alpha.

“Sherlock...”

Perhaps it was the note of pleading in his voice or maybe he just got his instincts under control. Whatever the case, after a glance at the blonde, Sherlock seemed to snap out of whatever mind set he had been caught in. The rumble emanating from the back of his throat subsided and then stopped altogether. He didn’t say sorry; that wasn’t a word that would pass his lips while his brother was present, but John heard it all the same and was rather thankful for it.

It seemed that Mycroft picked up on it as well, however, as the ghost of a smile graced his lips for a moment. He watched as Sherlock settled himself back down beside John, rather close, then sat down himself, choosing to sit, John noted, in his baby brother’s chair. To an outsider he would have looked completely fitting and at least somewhat at ease, with his left leg crossed over the right, one hand gripping the handle of the umbrella loosely while the arms rested on the arm rests and his general posture in something of a recline. Even to those who knew him better, he would at least seem perfectly… _Mycroft_ , for lack of a better term, but there was something in his scent that John was learning to recognize. It was close to the notes of distress present in the brunette at certain times.

“I’m assuming this isn’t purely a social visit?” the doctor asked and was given a minute nod in return. “Right. What’s the news?”

“Perhaps I could convince you to make us a cup of tea, John?” Mycroft enquired. The civility of his question was not was surprising in itself, but it was the consideration inherent in the phrasing that was unusual enough to give pause. The man wanted to shield him somewhat, which was worrying.

“Of course. I’ll just be a moment.” John rose and walked out into the kitchen, keenly aware that two pairs of eyes were boring into him all the way there. He drew in a deep breath and shook it off. They were not going to put him on edge, not with the simple act of staring. He was galvanized against that.

He stayed in the kitchen while the kettle boiled, listening as the two brothers started speaking in what he suspected was deliberately low voices. He wasn’t able to make out any words, though, but it was clear that there was very little sniping, which qualified as another sign of worry.

By the time the water was poured, the bags dunked in and the mugs of tea brought in, they were once more regarding him closely, as if they were seeing something written on him that only they could detect. They probably could – or they could smell something.

“Alright,” he commented as he distributed the mugs, “quit staring, the pair of you. I’m not that interesting.” He let himself fall back down on the sofa beside his mate and felt a hand slide around him as soon as he was seated.

“On the contrary, you most certainly are.” It was Mycroft speaking. “Quite apart from this new turn of events – and the ones before that – you have always been an interesting and contradictory man, Doctor Watson. I knew the first time I met you.”

“Oh, you mean the first time you kidnapped me?”

The man with ‘a minor role in government’ didn’t seem bothered by the accusation. “Indeed. Even then you proved something of a fascinating creature. That hasn’t diminished in the intervening time.”

“Well…thank you for the compliment, I guess. Now that you’ve delayed the audible conversation long enough without actual bothering with normal courtesies, would either of you mind telling me what is going on? Did you find out who the nutter pointing a gun at me and my family is, apart from an ex-military Alpha?”

Out of the corner of his eye the Omega spotted his partner’s lips quirking ever so slightly.

Mycroft leaned forward, picked up his mug in his long fingers and took a long sip before he answered, giving no indication that the undoubtedly too hot liquid had burned him as he swallowed. “Not quite, no. I assure you that work is being done,” he hastened to add, “but so far the answer is eluding my staff.” A small twitch to his lip made it clear that he less than impressed by their efforts.

“Then what is it that brings you all the way here in person?”

“While searching for data, one of my clerks came across some information that was…unfortunate.” He paused and cleared his throat. “It has been filed today that there is a body missing.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Mycroft, do get to the bloody point!”

The doctor was surprised by the swearword falling from his mate’s lips, but it wasn’t commented on by the older Alpha. “Yes, of course. The body’s disappearance was reported from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital earlier today by one Molly Hooper.”

It took very little time for John to put two and two together and the colour drained from his face in an instant.

“ ** _What_** _?!”_ It came out as a strange cross between a bellow and a screech, but it encompassed his immediate reaction and feelings succinctly.

He was barely aware of his own body; he didn’t really register when he started shaking or when he shot up from his sitting position, fists clenched and teeth bared, though it wasn’t clear whether it was in a grimace of fear or a snarl.

Only when he was yanked back down and pulled so that he was cradled by wiry arms against a warm chest, his nose pressed by a strong hand into the junction of neck and shoulder, where there was a significant concentration of Sherlock’s unique scent, did he realize how he had reacted. He took another deep inhalation, letting the scent that had always been soothing to his senses settle into his nostrils and calm him as much as it was able to.

“He is dead, John,” Sherlock whispered softly in his ear while he ran a soothing hand up and down the Omega’s back. “I saw the body myself and there is not even the slightest possibility he could get up from that slab under his own power. Molly has taken his heart.”

He knew that with absolute certainty not only because he’d been able to see the cuts and stitches from the post mortem examination, but because she had actually shown it to him, stuffed in a jar with formaldehyde. She said she was going to replace the formaldehyde with water and then a glycol solution, one which the consulting detective was going to look up later, to ensure the tissue wouldn’t decay. Her claim that it was in order to teach future students he didn’t believe for a moment.

“Why would she do that?” The question came from the elder Holmes brother, whose worried, apologetic look had been tampered with a puzzled frown.

“Moriarty pretended to be a normal guy, a regular Beta, and was her boyfriend for a time in order to get close to Sherlock,” John replied, his answer muffled by his position cradled against his Alpha’s chest. “I’m guessing that she might have taken to the revelation that she’d been played so thoroughly less well than we thought.” He tried to straighten up and pull away at that, but the arms around him held tight. He had to admit that it did help with the inner thudding of the panic to have his mate’s arms and scent around him like that. Resenting his new instincts weren’t going to make them go away, so he would learn to embrace at least the more useful of them.

It was still embarrassing to be held like that in front of Mycroft, though. Not that Sherlock seemed to care or even to notice.

“Molly is not an idiot,” Sherlock said, which was rather high praise from him, “even though her choices of romantic interests beg to differ. She knows how much this means and will have secured the body properly. Though of course I can’t speak for the other imbeciles swarming the place.” He looked at his brother. “The body has been taken by Moriarty’s henchman.” It wasn’t even a question.

“Without a shadow of a doubt,” the redhead confirmed regardless. “I believe we may even safely surmise that this particular job was carried out by the man himself, even if the photographic evidence is not conducive to working out their face.” In other words, the cameras had been tampered with. “It is highly unlikely that he would entrust any of the ones in the network willing to work under him with such an important task. The risk that another could steal the body for their own gain would be far too great.”

John’s eyebrows knitted together as something he’d considered early came back to the forefront of his mind; that it was odd to have an Alpha act like that for anyone that wasn’t his or her mate and especially go to such lengths. It was only reinforced by the theft of a body. It was extremely implausible that a mere employee would steal the corpse of their boss, even if one ignored the fact that they’d be stealing it from under the watchful eye of Mycroft Holmes.

He moved so he could look at both brothers. “So,” he said slowly. “How common is it for two Alphas to bond with each other?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How was that for a red herring from the last chapter? ^^
> 
> Anyway, while I decided not to invent too many 'sicentific names' for this (it would have felt tacky, I think), I based the hormone regulating the Omega reproductive aspects on what can actually happen if you have an imbalance of oestrogen. It isn't oestrogen since there aren't just pure females, but it's similar. Hope that the small speech from Sherlock was at least somewhat creditable.
> 
> I was extremely tempted to leave it at John's 'What?!', but I've felt bad that I've made you wait again, so I decided to push onward to the point up there. That leaves you with a 4k word chapter with stuff happening. I hope I am forgiven for the wait and everything ^^
> 
> Feedback is treasured ^^


	12. Securities and worries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Holmes brothers and John try to work with what they know and how best to safeguard their little family, Sherlock all the while being very protective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Easter, everybody. I hit a bit of a writing spree, so you get this earlier than expected :)  
> I will say I had expected a lot more comments on the hormone explanation last time, but what do I know? You enjoy it, that's all I can ask for. Thank you for your kind encouragement :D

For a moment all he got as an answer was two entirely blank expressions. It wasn’t even the standard Holmes façade of keeping anything and everything tightly bottled up inside of them; it was what looked like genuine incomprehension of what he was saying.

“It can’t be that unusual in real life, surely? I know we don’t really come across it in our work and it’s treated as this big going against the grain thing in the media, but – ”

“You would be very stupid to give credence to anything that the media treats as something to be enamoured by.” The interruption came from Sherlock, brought out of his momentary stupor.

“I _know_ that, Sherlock. But we have something far more concrete to back that up, though. With Irene, I mean,” John clarified at the brunette’s questioning look. “She was another Alpha, but she clearly wanted you.”

“For sex, yes, most definitely,” the consulting detective replied. “That is indeed not uncommon, though it is more of a recent development in society. Irene was blatant about her appetite for just about anyone who proved interesting different, which was why she was drawn to you like wasp to jam.”

The comment managed to sable down any jealousy John could have felt before it had a chance to manifest and it was reinforced by the hand carting through his hair in what could only termed an affectionate gesture. It was also soothing. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Sure you don’t mean like bees to honey?”

“No.” The word was spoken quickly and with a sense of finality. “I _like_ bees. Bees are fascinating. Wasps are predators and parasites. They _kill_ bees.” The contempt in the last words were almost funny in a way.

“That would explain the bee blanket draped over the arm of your chair, then,” Mycroft cut in. He held the item in his hand in and oddly gentle manner.

“Please refrain from touching any of my son’s things and polluting them with your odour, Mycroft.”

“Insult me all you like, dear brother, but the fact of the matter is that you need me. It is downright foolish of you to try and manage everything on your own, even attempting to shut your mate out in an effort to protect him. Lucky for you, you picked a smart man to bond with.”

He gave John a soft smile that was slightly unsettling on the face of the older Alpha. “I couldn’t help overhearing the last part of your conversation earlier.”

Neither resident of 221B brought up the likelihood that the entire flat was bugged and Mycroft would have access to more than the last part of the conversation.

“Yeah?”

“I do have to agree with Sherlock, John. There is a much greater risk of an outside facility being breached or someone bribed to harm you in some way or take you away, even if you don’t factor in the possessive tendencies of your mate.”

“He pointed a rifle at me, Mycroft!” John burst out. “Right here, in my own damn home while I was sleeping! How can I be any safer in a badly isolated flat with windows that aren’t even double-glazed than I would be in a secure facility with specialists that could also make sure my body won’t kill my child?”

Mycroft leant forward slightly, hands supported on his knees. Without his umbrella to lean on as he did so, the gesture seemed a bit odd.

“It is a good point, but you do need to let people finish when they are making an argument. Of course a building that is already secured would seem a safer option…” he trailed off for a moment as he leant back again. “Or it would, if it wasn’t for the obvious ability of Moriarty’s network to infiltrate just about anywhere that relies on outside personnel for its main operation. The evidence of that was indisputable when you were kidnapped in the beginning stages of your Heat.”

The redhead’s thin lips became almost invisible as they pressed together in obvious annoyance over the lack of reliability from his employees. “I will not allow anything remotely like that to happen to you this time, so therefore I will leave nothing to uncertainty. If I can count on my dear baby brother to actually fulfil his duty as protector this time and not go gallivanting off out of fear and feelings of inadequacy – “ he ignored the indignant noise coming from his brother – “I will make certain that the flat is as secure as it is possible to make it with the tools available.”

“I don’t think I want to know what Mrs. Hudson is going to say about that,” John muttered. For whatever reason, that was the first thing that came to his mind at that.

“’Sherlock! Sherlock! What are you doing to my home, having it vandalised like that?’” It took the doctor a moment to realize that the elderly woman hadn’t actually come up the stairs herself and it was his partner doing a startlingly good impersonation, given his normal baritone rumble. “’It’s for the safety of John and the baby, Mrs. Hudson’. ‘A baby! Oh, that’s different, then – but of _course_ you haven’t bothered to tell me about it, oh, no! You rattle my windows, slam my doors, but consider _me_ in any of this…!’”

Even the speech pattern was uncannily spot on that a laugh bubbled its way out of John before he had time to think about it, much less stop it. Sherlock joined him in as much as he smiled a bit proudly. Even from Mycroft there was a soft huff of amusement.

“Leaving aside musings on your landlady’s reaction,” the man who was the British Government continued after a moment of silence, “I am more interested in hearing your opinion on the matter, John.”

The doctor frowned. Since when had Mycroft bothered to ask his opinion in anything but a perfunctory manner? Even when he’d provided a place for John to go through his Heat, he had arranged it without consulting the Omega at any stage. Granted, there hadn’t been much time to ask an opinion on, or even arrange it, but it still did seem odd that Mycroft would want his opinion _now_.

“Why?”

The older Alpha sensed the guarded, suspicious undercurrent to the question. “Because you might have been a doctor, but you were also a soldier. You have been taught how to protect yourself and make sure your surroundings are protected as well. To not hear your opinion on how to best safeguard your own home would be patently ill-advised, quite apart from the fuss you are sure to kick up if I don’t.” He gave a tight smile. “I have learned that to my cost over the years. So no, my question is not influenced by a consideration of your new status as an Omega, despite your belief to the contrary.”

“You know,” John commented, “even though I do live with Sherlock, that ability to work out my thoughts is still a little unsettling. Brilliant, though,” he assured his mate. He then turned back to the elder brother. “Thank you, Mycroft.”

“Not at all.” With that, the ginger haired man rose from his seat in the same annoyingly elegant way that his brother had. Sherlock had possibly even been the one to copy it. “Now I do have to leave you. Apart from the usual trifling matters of state, of course, I sincerely hope that my staff has been able to prove themselves useful enough to find your sniper.” He gripped the handle of his umbrella, possibly a little tighter than he normally would. “That and the preparations for the security measures to this building should be taken care of as soon as possible. I trust you’ll be kind enough to give my PA a call shortly, won’t you, John?”

The doctor nodded. “Good. I am glad to see that you both are being sensible and responsible. It will be good practice for when my nephew arrives.”

He levelled a look at his brother, who was still seated and had a very tight hold on his mate, even though John didn’t seem to have noticed it. Sherlock returned the look and once more it looked like a lot of information was passing between them without a single word being spoken aloud.

After that, Mycroft gave his immaculate suit a perfunctory and unnecessary brush off and walked towards the front door. Before he reached it, though, John called out to him.

“You’re down to just a few candidates on who the…the stalker might be, right?” A nod. “Okay. Is there any way you can find out how many of them has a bond bite? That ought to narrow it down a bit more.”

Ginger eyebrows shot up and their owner blinked rapidly a few times. Then a slow, knowing smile spread across angular, slightly freckled features. “A good match indeed, Doctor Watson. Good day to the both of you.” With that, he exited through the front door, closing it gently behind him as he went.

When John turned his attention back to his mate, he found Sherlock looking at him with narrowed eyes, whether. “What is it?”

“When and how did you work out that Moriarty had bitten our suspect?” The pale eyes flitted about his face, as if he was trying to glean the clues from John’s features alone.

“You make it sound like Moriarty was some sort of vampire, swooping down on unsuspecting employees.”

_“John_.”

The blonde sighed. “Alright, alright, keep your hair on, I was just joking. It was something I thought of earlier, when you were snoring your head off. What kind of man would go through all of this for a man who was nothing more than his boss? We talked about that before. Then it hit me that it definitely didn’t fit with the normal Alpha behaviour, especially an Alpha in the upper ranks of the military, no matter how loyal he might otherwise feel…but it did fit with the behaviour of a bond mate who had just lost their partner.”

Suddenly his vision was shifting; he was tipping backwards and fast, for Sherlock had tightened his grip on him so he could somehow careen into him even though they were both stationary. How he managed it the Omega had no idea. He couldn’t say he minded, though, seeing as he had a mate directly above him who was grinning like the proverbial cat.

“John, you utterly brilliant man!” He landed a solid kiss on his partner’s lips. “Of course he’d go to such lengths for a bond mate – and it explains why he would steal the body!”

“Amazing what it takes to get a compliment out of you that isn’t backhanded in some way.”

“I compliment you plenty, don’t be silly. It’s not my fault if you’re not able to pick up on them.”

“There we go, that’s much more familiar. Now, any chance you’ll let me up? Not really the most comfortable position to maintain for an extended period of time.”

“Nonsense. You’ve been in far more uncomfortable positions for longer periods than this.” Despite that, the brunette rearranged their limbs until they were lying quite comfortably, if somewhat snugly, together on the sofa.

Something dawned on John. “You’re not serious, are you? You’re not going to fall asleep on top of me like this?”

“No. I’m going to head into my Mind Palace for a while, which is completely different.”

“Not while you’re lying on top of me, you’re not,” John protested, beginning to wriggle. “Mate or not, Sherlock, you’re bloody heavy for such a gangly body and I can’t lie here for hours just because it’s more convenient to you. I have to call Anthea or whatever-her-name-is-this-week, for one thing, remember?”

“You can do that later.” The Alpha leaned closer and whispered in the Omega’s ear. “Please, John. I…really need this right now. Will you indulge me?” A kiss was planted on his earlobe.

“Put like that, how can I say anything but yes? You’ve got me wrapped around your little finger, you have.”

Sherlock didn’t reply, but then John hadn’t really expected him to. As his mate lay ‘in thought’ on top of him, the doctor drifted off into a light doze, sorely needed by his body.

He was woken with a start by a shout a while later. Surprisingly, it didn’t come from him, but though it had come from Sherlock, it hadn’t sounded like any kind of eureka shout, either. In fact, it had sounded very much like John’s name and rather panicked at that.

“What? What is it? Are you alright?” He got no answer. “Please, Sherlock. Talk to me.”

“I saw you…” was what came out eventually, in a voice barely above a whisper. “I saw you bleeding out right in front of me, completely silent, and there was nothing I could do.”

“Just a nightmare, love…” John tried to soothe.

“I _know_ that!” the Alpha snapped back, rattled. His limbs were trembling lightly where they were curled around the man underneath him. “I _know_ , but it _could_ happen and I can’t work out what to do to prevent it that won’t hurt you or our son. There are just too many variables that it is not _possible_ to calculate.”

He sounded so utterly frustrated and pained it cut into the heart of the Omega. He wanted to comfort the man, but when he spoke, it was something entirely different that came out.

“If I…lose the baby,” he said a bit hesitantly. The body on top of him stiffened in response. “I’m not saying I want that to happen, but it’s a possibility, we have to consider it. If I do…if I survive and the baby doesn’t, what then?”

There was another question hidden inside the first one, unspoken but picked up on by the brunette. _What will you think of me then?_

Miscarriages were far from an unheard of experience for Omegas, though they did occur somewhat more frequently for Beta females. What made it unusual and particularly fraught for John was the fact that as a changed Omega with an inserted womb, if he was to miscarry, the risk of his body rejecting the by then attached womb and rupturing itself from the inside was immense. Sherlock’s dream of the doctor bleeding out was hardly impossible or even farfetched.

Compounding the issue, if he miscarried without further complications than that, he would carry the evidence of the miscarriage in his scent just as he now carried that of being pregnant. It would fade and eventually disappear over time, but until then any other Omega and every Alpha would know that he had lost his child.

Subsequently he would be judged as a bad Omega that couldn’t even keep the offspring that his Alpha had gifted him with alive. He had _allowed_ such a thing to happen and was therefore to be reviled. Though such views were regarded as old fashioned, they still held a lot of sway with most of the English population. Sherlock wasn’t exactly known for adhering to anything that was a mere social construct, but that didn’t quite quell the tiny seed of worry inside John that he wasn’t prepared to acknowledge to himself.

The consulting detective raised his head to look at him, a frown of puzzlement instead of frustration on his features for a moment. He blinked a couple of times in rapid succession. “Then I will grieve for him, obviously.”

“And?”

The puzzlement grew only more pronounced. “And then, if you do not experience any complications later on, we will continue to live our lives.” Something cleared in the brunette’s expression as the penny dropped. “Ah. What if you cannot get pregnant again afterwards? What if you’ll be a broken Omega that nobody would want?”

John flushed, mostly with anger at the embarrassment he felt because of the accuracy of Sherlock’s words. Before he could answer, though, his mate spoke again.

“John, sometimes I think you’re determined to be stupid. The fact that you are now pregnant with my child is wonderful, not just from biological, instinctual standpoint, but that has absolutely nothing to do with our bonding. Need I remind you that I was leaving scent markers on you when you were a Beta and there was no possibility at all that you could have a Heat, much less become pregnant?”

“Yeah, okay, fair point,” John conceded, smiling that rueful, lopsided smile that made Sherlock’s heart jump and clench at the same time. He bit his lip as he sighed deeply. “Fuck, I could really do without all of these bloody instincts running rampant inside of my brain. That and society’s bloody expectations of what I ought to be like as an Omega.”

“Why should you care about that?”

“I shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect me at least at some level. I’m wrong-footed enough as it is and having to deal with other people’s shitty expectations _on top of everything else_ is doing a bit of a number on me, honestly.”

“People are boring.”

John pressed a small kiss to the part of temple he could reach from his position, the thank you evident from the gesture. “That they are. Now, have you done enough of a tour in your Mind Palace that you could possibly, oh, I don’t know, let me up?”

“Why would I do that? I’m comfortable.”

“Well, _I_ am not and if you don’t move, I’ll shove you off into the coffee table.”

“Oh, _fine_.” With that, Sherlock did move, but he decided to pull John with him as he went, which definitely surprised the doctor. “There. All upright and proper.” He then proceeded to grab John’s hand and try to drag him, presumably, towards their now shared bedroom.

“Hold on, what’s gotten into you now? Sherlock!”

“You won’t let me lie on top of you on the sofa because it’s uncomfortable. I still need to think, you’re nice to lie on, so I’m merely finding a solution that will benefit us both.”

“Oh, you say the nicest things!” John managed to get them both stopped by grabbing onto the frame of the kitchen door leading into the hallway and holding on tightly. “No, stop. Really, stop!” He was spared from having his shoulder dislocated by the blessed occurrence of the consulting detective actually stopping and looking at him oddly.

“First off, I’m not going into bed again this early just because you want to cuddle, but won’t own up to it. Secondly, I’m hungry, Sherlock – all your blooming feeding has left me hungrier than I usually am at this time of day. So if you want me there to help you get to sleep, sorry, into your Mind Palace, you’re going to have to wait until I have made myself some lunch, at least. I know asking that you eat something too is too much, so I won’t bother.”

He then tried to untangle his hand, but he didn’t have much success. Instead he got a thoughtful expression and a Sherlock who practically stomped back into the kitchen. John let himself be guided over to a chair by the kitchen table and sat down, once more in the back of his mind noting the oddity of the clean surface of not only the table, but the work surfaces as well.

“You sit there, then. I’m going to make us lunch.” It was said with much the same tone he used when he announced the discovery of some great piece of information he’d _just_ discovered.

“You what? You’re having a laugh, right? I haven’t even seen you do beans on toast!”

“That’s only because beans on toast is positively revolting and have nothing whatsoever to do with food, much as the average university student will beg to differ. I can cook, John – I lived perfectly fine for years before you came along, I just choose not to slow down my brain with food.”

_Says the bleeding cocaine addict_ , John thought, but chose not to say aloud for the sake of keeping the peace. “Alright, then,” he conceded in an amiable tone. “That’s sweet of you, really, but you really don’t have to protect and provide everything for me, Sherlock. You’re a great mate as is, you know that I think so, there’s no need to be this overly protective and prove that you are.”

“What makes you think that that’s what I’m doing?”

“What, apart from the fact that you’re breaking so many of your behavioural patterns that you have I’m getting a little unsettled? Oh, nothing, nothing at all.” He made an expansive gesture with his hand. “Just look at this lot, for a start.”

“What do you mean?”

John gave him a look of amazed disbelief; it was another look he’d perfected over the years. “You really think that you’re the only one who notices anything, don’t you? You unpacked what I brought home from the shops the other day, not just the things that you would need yourself for your experiments. You then went on to putting it all away, in their proper places instead of just finding a shelf in the cupboard or in the fridge and stuffing them in there. Even the stuff you needed for the spray that I know you had out on the table so you could work, it’s gone. Nice bit of tidying up there, though.”

He smiled to let the other know he wasn’t angry, merely pointing out a few irrefutable facts. The Alpha didn’t smile back, though. Instead he was frowning, staring without blinking. Then he spoke. “I didn’t.”

“Don’t give me that, I saw you put the things away, all the while clutching that baby blanket I bought.”

Sherlock waved a dismissive hand, brows knitting together further. “Not that. I fully acknowledge that I did that, yes, of course. I didn’t put away the experiment, however. It wasn’t finished. It needed stability in order to develop and I need to be able to attain the same result again, so there was no reason to clear it away at this point in time.”

“I didn’t clear it away either, if that’s what you think,” John said. “Perhaps Mrs. Hudson was feeling generous?”

“Quite apart from her constant exclamations of ‘not your housekeeper’,” Sherlock said, “she knows better than to disturb any of my experiments by this point.”

John stared right in front of him, seeing nothing as he tried to keep his composure as best he could. He vaguely heard his mate rummaging through the cabinets. “Then who did tidy away the stuff?” he eventually asked.

“It’s not been tidied away,” Sherlock corrected, still opening and closing cabinets. “It’s been taken. My telescope and my regular equipment has been put away, in the wrong place and rather haphazardly at that, but all of the samples of the different variables, the notes I made as I worked on it and every single thing I had you bring back as well as a few others things.”

The Omega paled slightly at that. He paled even further when the Alpha stood up from his momentary squat and turned around, an unsettlingly familiar square of folded paper held between his long fingers. He unfolded it and laid it out flat on the table, absently smoothing out the corners of the paper as he looked with John at what had been written in the same uneven scrawl as the previous notes.

_So sorry to break into your cosy little home. Bit of a mess you’ve got, to be honest, but I did find what I was looking for, so no worries there. You’re very ungrateful, though, John, trying to conceal your scent like that after you were given the gift of being an Omega. Still, as I’ve stolen it, I suppose I can’t complain. Cheers_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am still worrying about pace, interest level and exposition dumping and argh...I know I shouldn't let my worry out to readers, but there you go. :)  
> We are moving towards an end and resolution very soon, though, I promise!
> 
> Feedback is always loved and treasured


	13. Preparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock begins to prepare for the stalker's visit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a commission again, which took up a lot of my time the last month, so that is why this is only coming up now.
> 
> Thank you once more for all your support, it keeps me up when I convince myself it's rubbish :)

John read the note, then read it again. Though he could feel the sense of dread settling in the pit of his stomach as a tiny knot, what was settling over the majority of him was an encompassing calm. He had been trained as a soldier, he had gone to war and come back, he followed Sherlock around his madcap cases and now he had even bonded with him. He had been scared, unsettled and wrong-footed for so long that he had almost forgotten what that said about him, but now that the man, the Alpha, had actually broken into his _home_.

Why that was worse than the other times seemed like a good question, but he guessed it had something to do with a breach of sanctity. Their stalker had been following him to the shops, had sent him texts and called on the phone to threaten them, but all of that had been from the outside trying to influence his life inside. That had somehow softened the impact just the tiniest bit, to know that they could be safe within the confines of their own flat.

He was going to make the man pay for all that he had _dared_ to put them through. Threatening John, that was one thing, threatening his family by breaking into their home was another thing altogether.

Meanwhile, Sherlock seemed to focus on something else entirely. His long fingers kept smoothing over the paper, as if he was trying to work out something from the texture of it alone.

“It’s not from him,” the consulting detective said at last.

John blinked, trying to process the words. “What do you mean, it’s not from him? What, we have two stalkers now?” The thought was rather horrifying.

“No. What I meant to say was that it was written by someone working for him, the same person who was the one to break in here.”

“How can you tell?”

“It’s quite obvious, actually. The writing is similar, but far from identical if you care to look, the wording is a lot different even though they’ve attempted the same style, it’s written with the biro I use for notes as seen by the shade of ink and the unevenness of the lines and most tellingly, there is no scent.”

“So, a Beta?” the blonde asked, still trying to get used to a world that was far more dependent on the smells of oneself and others than the stunted Beta version he was used to.

“Yes, but what’s more interesting is that he has chosen to not come into the flat himself or let there be much of a trace of his scent anywhere on the note, thus ensuring that there aren’t enough scent markers left for me to gather and analyse.”

“But we already know that he has a bond with Moriarty, well, had a bond, at least, which would explain why the scent markers on the note I got while at Marks and Spencer was so bloody similar. Why try to hide it now? It’s not like we wouldn’t be able to guess that it was Moriarty he was bonded to. I mean, the man was in the same room with me for quite some time during my…well, the beginning stages of my Heat, at any rate. It was hard to smell much _else_ besides that sickly sweet smell of blood plasma when he was leaning over me on that table…you know…” He stopped as the memories of that time swept back over him, none of them particularly pleasant.

It didn’t help either that as soon as he mentioned just how close the consulting criminal had been to him at that time, Sherlock visibly tensed, hands balling up as tight as they would go and jaw clenching. It was a more than sore point for the younger Holmes that some other Alpha had touched John when he had been under the influence, so to speak; that Sherlock had not been there to prevent it even though he should have been.

It wasn’t just the Alpha instincts kicking in, though, John knew that by now. One thing he had learned over the last few days was that although his mate wasn’t entirely above being influenced by his instincts, whatever he might say himself, his reactions and feelings towards the blonde was entirely separate to the instincts. They might influence him, but they were not the ones controlling him, at least not any more. He still shuddered when he thought of his mock Heat and how deeply… _affected_ Sherlock had been at that time.

He didn’t know how to diffuse the tension in a good way, however, and so he stayed quiet while he tried to work it out.

Sherlock himself saved them. Despite the tension still evident in him, his answer was calm, even though he was very careful not to mention that time.  “He is possibly not aware that we know of his precise connection with Moriarty. After all, faint traces of scent left on a note isn’t something that anyone would notice or even think to notice.”

“Okay, I get that for why he didn’t steal from here himself. But why not at least write the note himself, even if he was aware of the trace of his scent?” A thought occurred to him. “Or maybe he did and the person stealing had to recreate it from memory? After all, I haven’t smelled that scent in the vicinity at any other point when I’ve gotten a note, so it would make sense that he sent someone else with the note he’d written.”

Sherlock looked thoughtful. “Possibly, yes,” he conceded. “It is very difficult to verify without further evidence to back it up. Whatever the case, he definitely needed someone else to break into the flat that would have a clue as to what chemicals they ought to take from here.”

“Yeah, it’s not like you keep the most orderly lab in existence.”

“I know where everything is. That is, if people don’t come to interfere with it.”

It really wasn’t an important argument to have at that point, so John let the matter drop.

Instead he looked at the paper on the table, willing it to yield more information. “Why, though? That’s the part I’m really struggling with. Who would willingly let themselves be bonded to someone like Moriarty?” With his focus on the paper, he didn’t see the pained expression flitting over the Alpha’s face. “That is assuming, of course, that the bonding was consensual,” he continued, absentmindedly thinking out loud.

“With an Alpha…with a _psychopath_ like Moriarty,” Sherlock said, his change of descriptor coming rather quickly, as if the first had been an unintended slip of the tongue, “it would be the default assumption that it couldn’t be, but then, as you know, they can be very charming if they want to be.” The baritone voice sounded a bit strained at the end.

“True enough,” John conceded. “But that leaves us with the subsequent question of why on earth Moriarty would want to lumber himself with a mate at all, let alone a mate like that? All things being equal, a psychopath has no empathy for anyone and having a bond mate would only go so far to flatter his ego, even if his bond mate wasn’t another Alpha.”

“Facts, John, we deal with facts, not long-winded conjectures. We do not _know_ – “

“Yes, we do, Sherlock, don’t be an arse now, I am really not in the mood!” the Omega snapped back. He looked skywards, counted to ten, then twenty. “Right. How about you ring up Mycroft with our new findings and I write down some instructions on how best to secure this flat?”

Before the younger Holmes had a change to agree or disagree, a phone rang. More than a little cautious, Sherlock dug into his trouser pocket and pulled out his phone. There was the slightest hint of released tension in his shoulders that signalled he knew the number on the screen.

It was further confirmed by the clipped, annoyed ‘yes’ that he chose to answer with. What was surprising, though, was the fact that after the opening greeting, he actually shut up and listened attentively to what was being said.

The call went on for what seemed like rather a long time, but when it ended, Sherlock looked both a little unsettled and strangely resolute.

“That was Mycroft, wasn’t it?”

“Anthea, actually,” Sherlock replied as he shoved the phone back into his pocket. “Or whatever she is determined to call herself at the moment. Mycroft is in a meeting that can’t be postponed, apparently, but he instructed her to call me with his number so that either of us would actually pick up the phone. They have found out who was leaking information to Moriarty’s net; it seems as if the person has been employed for quite a number of years, but he only fell in with Moriarty because he owed money to quite the wrong people.”

“That’s strangely predictable.”

“Nothing strange about it, really. People tend to be dully predictable in their motivations most of the time, as you well know. What makes this more interesting as well as much more troublesome is the fact that it is a member of the civil service that have had access to important information for years now.” He thought for a second. ” I do believe you met him briefly the other day.”

It took a moment or two for John to sort through the amount of things that had happened over the last few days to single out that particular episode. “You mean that oily Alpha twat who insulted both of us?”

“Who you went on to punch quite soundly, yes. He used to be close to Mycroft once upon a time, heaven only knows why, as the man is utterly useless at anything other than jabbering incessantly. Guess he found a use for himself, though.”

“Getting a bit off the point, Sherlock. What information has he actually leaked? I know that Moriarty had access to the CCTV when we had that…meeting with him at the pool, so that can’t be it.”

“But that case started off with another of Mycroft’s employees completely and utterly failing to do their job. Were they connected? It…yes…”

John watched his partner for a moment, then sighed. “Right, while you head off into your Mind Palace again, I’m going to secure the flat.”

That brought the Alpha out of his trek into his mind, his pale eyes focusing and turning sharp. “And you plan to do that on your own? That is extremely inadvisable, John. You should at the very least let Mycroft provide the materials and the manpower.”

“How long will that take to get here?” the Omega asked, voice rising slightly as he spoke. “A day? A few days? Who’s to say that our stalker won’t turn up in this flat long before then? He has clearly shown that he can get his cronies in here without any trouble as it is, so what’s to stop him from doing a repeat performance while the flat is unprotected? How do you expect me to take it when I know that there’s a trained killer, an Alpha filled with rage intent on the destruction of my family as revenge out there and I could actually be doing something that would keep them safe?”

“I know.”

The two words were spoken quietly, but were more fiercely earnest for that.

“You are not the only one who wants to do something,” Sherlock continued, “and I understand wanting to be prepared. But Mycroft has the resources…”

“And he also has a very major security breach right now, so that’s not even necessarily a very smart move right now, in any case!” John interrupted, then reigned in his anger as best he could. “It takes a lot for you to let Mycroft near like this, I know that and I appreciate it, but I don’t…don’t really trust them right now.”

Sherlock regarded him silently for a moment. Then he leaned over and pressed a soft, oddly reassuring smile to the doctor’s lips.

“You have the knowledge. Put it into practice.” The ‘ _I trust **you**_ ’ was left hanging in between the lines where John read them due to familiarity with his partner. “I’ll think for a bit.” He grabbed the note off the table and walked back towards the living room and the sofa, bringing the paper up to his nose to give it a closer examination as he went.

John took a few breaths, shook his shoulders and flexed his fingers.

“Right, then.”

First off, he would see just what places he needed to focus on with his measures. Then he had to find where he’d put the few tools he’d actually bought during the time he’d been living at the flat. That would be interesting.

But, as he set off in the direction of the stairs to his now former bedroom, he took solace in the fact that he was now actually doing something. It would probably not help much in the end, but every little helped, even more so psychologically than physically when it came to anything or anyone connected with James Moriarty.

 

* * *

 

An hour later found John on his knees in front of the entrance door, taking a look at just how the lock worked and how he could possibly change and enforce it somehow with the tools he had available. He’d managed to scrounge up a few different things after a thorough rummage of the entire flat that had taken him the better part of the hour; quite a few of them had been procured as part of different Sherlock experiments, which was hardly that surprising.

That being said, it didn’t mean all the tools were particularly useful with regards to what he had in mind or even normal maintenance of a flat. The wire cutters, for example, were hardly relevant and neither was the voltage tester, but the coping saw, the allen keys and the screw drivers might just give him a snowflake’s chance to do something useful with the lock.

Now all he had to do was locate some suitable metal.

“Sherlock, have we got any spare metal lying around somewhere?” he called out as he sat back on his haunches so that he could look through the pile of tools he’d accumulated to find the screw driver that would actually fit the screws of the lock, which could have done with some serious maintenance by the look of them.

The feeling of calm that had settled over him earlier was only reinforced by the actual work he was doing to improve their security. Of course it had rattled him that Mycroft’s group of employees had had a mole among them that had more than likely leaked information to Moriarty for a long time, quite severely so. But given that it _had_ probably been a very long time, they had no way of knowing just how much information had already been sent and so it was possible that they hadn’t been anymore safe before this entire debacle had begun.

That fact should probably horrify him immensely, and in some small corner of his mind he was horrified, but on some strange level it was actually more of a comfort than it was a threat. It at least meant that they were already somewhat prepared, at least mentally.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the actual act of being physically pulled upwards by one arm. For a moment his instincts ruled and he kicked out with one leg as soon as he had both feet on the floor, hooking his foot around the back of a leg and pulling. The hold on his arm let go and there was a thud as a body hit the rug.

It was only then that it registered in John’s mind that there was no foreign scent anywhere near him. His eyes focused and he could see that the one sitting on his butt in front of him was Sherlock, looking somewhat surprised.

“Well, that was stupid.”

A muscle ticked in the jaw of the former soldier. “You grab hold of me without any forewarning and try to pull me bodily. How the bloody hell do you expect me to react in a situation like the one we’re in?”

“You’d react pretty much the same way regardless,” the younger Holmes pointed out, absently rubbing the back of his leg, “although I will grant you that you’re usually much quicker to assess the situation and only react violently when the situation demands it.”

“Bit on edge here, Sherlock.”

“For the situation, no, you’re not,” Sherlock countered. He got to his feet as gracefully as ever, careful to do it clearly so as not to get the same response again. “As a matter of fact you are surprisingly calm about the whole thing right now. You’re letting the instincts gained as a soldier guide your actions instead of the ones you’ve been given as an Omega.”

“And that makes you grin like an idiot? I knocked you on your arse after you startled me and you could have hit something on your way down, yet you’re smiling like it’s all dandy. Why?”

“Because it proves the point that I’ve been attempting to convince you of since we bonded; you’re you, first and foremost, with all the experiences that have shaped you throughout the years, not just some Omega who is a slave to his secondary gender.”

“Well, I suppose that does make some sort of sense,” John conceded. “But that then begs the question of why you thought that coming up behind me and pulling on my arm without announcing your presence to me was a _good_ idea.”

The smile faded slightly. “You should have been able to scent me and known that there was no threat long before I even got close to you. Secondly, I did announce my presence by calling your name a few times, but you seemed lost in thought.”

 _Which made you worry,_ John added in his head. Aloud he said, “Why did you call my name, then?”

“Because you shouldn’t be working on stuff like that in your condition.”

The Omega cocked his head at that. “You really are oscillating still, aren’t you? You just congratulated me on not giving into my biologically driven instincts and then you admit to acting on your own biologically driven instincts straight afterwards.”

“It’s not as though I _choose_ to do so, John. I _know_ that the child is barely a foetus yet and that you can go about your life as before for quite some time yet, but that does not stop the nagging worry.” The smile had turned rather humourless. “You are not the only who has to struggle with their instincts from time to time.”

“I know, love.”

John paused, mentally casting about for something to say that would soothe over his partner’s display of frailty without dismissing it entirely. “Something else must have brought you out of your Mind Palace, though, otherwise you wouldn’t have noticed me,” he said. “So what have you worked out?”

A look of gratefulness flashed across the pale features. “That there is another way to prepare for when our stalker decides he wants to come out and play face to face other than reinforcing the doors and so on, since that won’t necessarily be of much use in the end, given who we are dealing with.”

He walked close to the shorter man, placed one hand on the waist while the other went up to cup a cheek, thumb stroking gently across it. The smile returned in a soft, reassuring version. “More than that, though, I believe I may have found a way to ensure that when your body is forced into another Heat, it will not result in it rejecting the foetus or hurt you in any significant way.”

John’s heart leapt at that, though at the same time he couldn’t help but be somewhat sceptical, with everything that had happened up to that point. Add to that the fact that only hours previous Sherlock had been adamant, not to mention beyond frustrated, that he couldn’t think of a way to make sure John wouldn’t be hurt, no matter how hard he tried, and it seemed like it was more of an attempt to lift the Omega’s spirit. Nevertheless, it was very heart-warming to know that it had been the top priority of that massive brain along with how they’d best protect their home and family from the man who wanted nothing more than to rip them apart, mentally and physically.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, leaning into the touch, inferring much more than just for telling him a thing like that.

“Tell me about it over dinner?” he asked instead after a moment.

“Of course I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit on the short side, I know, but I didn't want to leave you all hanging for longer than I had to. That and today, 30/4, marks a year since the first chapter was posted, so it fitted rather well ^^ If it's any consolation to you, we're moving into the endgame and it will only be a couple of chapters until we're all done. Exciting, no?
> 
> Feedback is as always much appreciated :D


	14. Visitor in the night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their stalker decides to pay them a visit in the middle of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...this have actually been sitting finished for a little bit, but I have been sooo extremely nervous about whether or not it would work and be interesting. Then the lovely IantoLives was kind enough to look it through for me, so I owe her a great for the chapter not just being scrapped. :) Still, thank you all for your kind words and encouragement all around!  
> Penultimate chapter, everyone.

Across the city a few hours later Mycroft was sitting in his office chair, arms resting on the desk in front of him. His hands were not lightly interlaced as was usual, though, and neither were they steepled as was the custom of his brother. Instead they were curled into fists on top of the wooden desk surface, almost drained of colour from being clenched so very tightly for quite some time.

He had been compromised. Worse than that, the infiltration had been from a source that he had completely disregarded and as such, he had allowed it to continue for far longer than he should have.

Of course that had doubtless been Moriarty’s plan, but that was hardly any consolation. Not when it threatened national security and especially not when it put his family in any sort of danger.

It had rattled him enough that he actually snarled at Anthea when she came in to give him some additional information an hour or so later. Thankfully she did not take any offense or even much of a notice to his unusual behaviour. She simply put down the files she’d come in with on his desk with only the briefest of glances up at him as she did so. Then she walked back out, calm as anything.

Not even her scent had betrayed her reacting to the challenge he had unconsciously presented with his own scent; an Alpha failing to rise to another Alpha’s challenge was quite unusual, but then again, that was Anthea all over.

Reigning in his anger to the best of his presently fairly limited abilities, he pulled the files towards him. They were the files they had on what was left of the higher ups in Moriarty’s web, which were fewer than one would expect with the kind of network that the consulting criminal had built over the years.

He opened each of them briefly to check the bond status of each one of them. Each and every one of them was an Alpha and quite a few had the tell-tale marks of a bond bite visible in the photos that were attached to the files. The ones made by Omegas could be distinguished by the slightly shallower imprint the teeth had made as they broke through the skin.

One set caught his eye; it stood out rather significantly, in that it couldn’t have been from an Omega, but it was difficult to tell whether it was from a Beta or another Alpha. It almost seemed to be a mix between the two, odd as that sounded.

Remembering the point John had made earlier, he focused on the name of the person in question. The anger was for a moment subsumed by surprise at just who it was. Then the anger was back at the forefront of his mind.

He picked up his phone. He ought to have a meeting with the foreign minister at that moment, but he had chosen to postpone it until he could trust himself to act calmly. It would not do to be emotionally compromised when dealing with the rather shrewd minister, especially considering how much of a gossip the minister’s PA could be.

Who he called instead wasn’t his brother, however. At least he wasn’t the first port of call.

That distinction went to Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade. Sherlock might consider him and the rest of New Scotland Yard useless imbeciles not capable of solving the simplest of whodunits, but the Beta inspector had proven his worth more than once with regards to the issue with John’s changes. More than that, with the elder Holmes’ own network having been shown to be compromised, possibly severely so, it was imperative to have someone there that could be relied upon. In any case, Mycroft needed him to be ready and in position as soon as possible.

If what he could read in the file and what he had heard about the man it was about was true, even a small portion of it, he was not only an excellent choice for the post as Moriarty’s right hand man, he was a man to be feared.

 

* * *

 

 

Back at 221B Baker Street John had managed to more or less pressgang his bond partner into going to bed. They had argued for some time about the wisdom of that with such a man after them. Sherlock had even pointed out that it was the norm for him not to go to bed when he had a case on, which it amounted to in its own strange way, which John knew perfectly well, and so there was no reason for him to waste his time sleeping. Not when he could utilize the time much better.

In the end the doctor had shrugged and said that if that was the case, that was up to the younger Holmes. He was free to manage his time in whatever way he saw fit. But John did need to get some sleep, if he was to have a chance of dealing with their nemesis, whenever he chose to rear his ugly head, so he would go to bed, regardless of what the Alpha chose to do.

He managed to brush his teeth, undress and put on his sleep wear and even get comfortable under the covers, with a brief moment to calm his heart from the thought of snipers pointing guns at him while he slept, before the door opened very quietly. There was the sound of socked feet padding across the floor and the soft creak of the springs in the mattress as a lanky body settled onto it. One long arm snaked over John’s side and curled around so that it half-circled the torso and the bony hand rested on the lower abdomen.

“How am I ever going to work a case on my own from now on?” Sherlock whispered softly, half frustrated and annoyed, half exasperatedly affectionate.

There really wasn’t much of an answer to give to that one, so John kept his mouth shut. Instead he moved his hand down to cover the one already resting on his stomach under his t-shirt, caressing the long fingers. In response, he felt soft lips brush against the skin of the back of his neck, just where he had originally bitten down to seal the bond bite.

In the dark of the room and the relative quiet of the night, there was a sense of security, warmth and, above all, love.

They were in it together, as a bonded pair, and they would see it through together.

 

* * *

 

John stirred from under the covers. Something had pulled him from the depths of sleep, rather quickly at that and he blinked slowly as he tried to ascertain just what had done it.

It only took him a second or two to see that what was wrong was light spilling in from the bedroom door that was still ajar. Sherlock wasn’t careful with remembering to put the lights out before he left a room, but John knew for a fact that the flat had been dark when they’d gone to sleep.

Disentangling himself as gently as possible from the octopus embrace of his mate, he located his gun from where had stashed it after his ‘move’ into Sherlock’s bedroom, checked it and then held it out in front of him as he made his way out of the room, down the hall and into the living room, where the light was coming from.  All the while he listened for any additional sounds while attempting to make as few sounds as possible himself.

As soon as he went into the living room, though, he knew he would be clearly visible to the one breaking and entering. Given that it was either Mycroft or their stalker who had decided to pay them a visit in the middle of the night, and Mycroft was hardly likely to sit there with only a single lamp turned on, it seemed only logical to hold his gun up and in front of him before he came into view.

At the first step into the room, there was movement in the corner and the sound of a low chuckle could be heard in the otherwise completely silent flat.

“Always so suspicious, John,” came the somewhat deep, utterly calm voice from the direction of the couch. The one lamp that was turned on was the one lighting the large table between the windows, which meant that the couch was cast mostly in darkness. “Then again, that’s how you stay alive, isn’t it? Assessing the situation before you react, done so quickly that to most people it will seem like there has been no assessment at all. Just open, friendly, approachable John Watson, no threat Beta – who’s now an even lower threat Omega. Or not, as the case might be.”

“Awfully talkative, aren’t you?” John asked as he slowly navigated his way through the furniture and general clutter that littered the room. He kept the gun up in front of him and cocked. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just shoot us in our sleep? Seeing as you managed to get in here without problem, twice now.”

The man turned his upper body far enough to get a better look at the man coming towards him. “Oh, relax, Johnny-boy. If I was going to just shoot you and your loving Alpha down, you think I’d bother with all this horse-hockey? Lower your gun. Have a seat. At least allow me a bit of a chat before you shoot me down.”

The soldier did indeed sit down on one of the chairs at the large table, but he kept the gun cocked. “You have had people shadowing me for days, sending notes, text and phone calls of a threatening nature and had guns pointed at me while I slept. Excuse me if I don’t exactly feel like being all that charitable right now.”

“Then why not shoot me as soon as you came through the door?”

“And miss the Bond speech? Not bloody likely.” He took a breath and got a whiff of something that made his blood run cold, even as his nose wrinkled slightly in confusion. He changed the grip on the gun. “That and you don’t deserve to go as easily as that.”

“Vindictive.”

“Takes one to know one,” the doctor shot back. Vengeance the motive, then?”

The man lifted an eyebrow. “Surely Sherlock’s deduced it all already?”

John kept quiet at that, let the man draw his own conclusions while he took the opportunity to get a better look at the man lying supine on the sofa in front of him.

First of all, if he was there, in the room without any visible weapon, it was a rather safe assumption that there were snipers positioned in strategic places around the surrounding area. Secondly, he had managed to get in there without any resident of 221 hearing him and neither was there anyone working for Mycroft bursting through the door.

The second one was not all too surprising, though, he had to admit. Not with a mole on the inside that could snap up any pertinent information and pass it on to what was left of Moriarty’s web. That would not only mean they would be aware of any development within fairly quickly, but that Mycroft wouldn’t entrust anyone within with the task of keeping his brother and his family safe. Not when it could result in another security breach, as had happened when John had been taken from the supposedly secure facility in the midst of his Heat.

“You’re being rude again, not answering me, Johnny-boy.”

“Well, fancy that. I wasn’t really fazed by being rude to your boss, and he was the one to inject me with a hormone concoction, implant a womb in me, kidnap me and basically raped me with a dildo while I was in Heat, so why would it bother me that I also happened to be rude to the man stinking up my flat while he’s got snipers pointing guns at me?” The blonde narrowed his eyes as something occurred to him. “But if you want me to talk, then I’ll ask you something; why pick right now to do it?”

“Because time is running out.”

It wasn’t their intruder talking. The voice came from the doorway to the living room and both men turned their attention towards the speaker.

It was Sherlock. He must have woken up just after John, for he had managed to get into both trousers and shirt, though he’d left the jacket behind, before making his way to where his mate and their stalker were. There was a clear sign that he’d rushed the job in how he had managed to button his shirt one button wrong all the way down. It wasn’t much, but for a man like Sherlock it was rather significant.

He walked in, as composed as ever if you didn’t know how to spot the tiny tells, coming to a halt beside John and leaning backwards against the table.

“Hello, Colonel,” he said calmly. “Or do you prefer just Sebastian, seeing as your army discharge was decidedly anything but honourable?”

“Dear, old brother tell you that, did he?” The tone was an attempt at jovial, but it came off as a bit more sneering.

“Actually, that was all John’s deduction, apart from the name,” Sherlock said with just the hint of a smirk on his lips. “That and the fact that you’re an Alpha, too; he was the one to work that part out. He didn’t know that that phrasing should have been in the past tense. But then again, not only is his sense of smell not that fine-turned yet, you have taken great pains to ensure that as little of yourself, and in particular your scent, has been visible to any of us. I admit, I should have uncovered the rationale behind that a lot sooner than I did.”

“Aw, don’t blame yourself,” Moran said in a mockingly sweet tone. “Your Alpha instincts must impede your other brain functions something fierce.”

“On the contrary. Your attempts, as well as those of your mate, to render me besides myself have instead managed to focus my attention on what would protect my family instead of becoming fascinated with things that are ultimately irrelevant.”

“Not quite that good at it in the beginning, though, were you?”

Sherlock gave a minute, one shoulder shrug. “Perhaps not, but I am still the one who has both a mate and a child on the way. You have lost one and is, if I’m not mistaken and I tend not to be, in very apparent danger of losing the other. Hence the issue of time running out.”

That got John’s attention; he shifted his gaze over towards his mate while still keeping half an eye on Moran. “What?” he asked in surprise.

“Moriarty did say you were far from the first one he had implanted a womb in, John, or experimented on in general, which is only logical. Not only is such a complex concoction of chemicals impossible to successfully create on a purely theoretical level, the notes are both too extensive and too specific in the details described for them to be entirely theoretical.”

At the mention of the notes, a small twitch under an eyelid betrayed the otherwise mostly neutral, though slightly cocky expression on Moran’s face.

“When you consider that,” the younger Holmes continued, “it is not that far of a leap to assume that when Moriarty was willing to inject his second in command with Omega hormones despite him being an Alpha, he would be willing to implant a womb into him, too.”

“I suppose that does explain the whole question of éminence grise,” the blonde Omega conceded. He turned his attention back to other former soldier. “But what I don’t get is why you would let Moriarty bite you, let alone implant a womb and knock you up?”

“Look who’s talking,” Moran said, his tone getting curiously defensive given the subject. It was something that John noted, so he was certain that Sherlock would have picked up on it as well and more than that.

“There’s quite the difference between a high functioning sociopath and a bona fide psychopath, though,” was what he said out loud. “Still doesn’t answer my question.”

“What is this, bloody ‘Twenty Questions’?”

“If you want what you came here for, then I think it would be in your best interest to answer the questions we have,” Sherlock said. “After all, you could have just shot us in our sleep and then rummaged around for the notes at your leisure. As you haven’t done that, there must be something that you still require from either or both of us while we’re alive.”

“And you don’t believe I merely do not want big brother on my arse right away?” the former Alpha shot back. “Or that I like to torment you?”

“Oh, I know that you do. Your actions through the last few days have attested to that, though I imagine you wouldn’t have been quite as openly vindictive had your mate and the father of your child not been shot dead.”

Moran snarled. There was no other word for it. One moment his face was calm as anything and the next he was sitting bolt upright on the sofa and his face was contorted into a snarling grimace, a low, threatening sound emanating from his throat.

“Shot dead? Shot dead by you! You killed him! Both of you!” The words were full of anger and hurt, but also of a strange, strong hint of gratefulness and relief. “You killed that bloody bastard!”

John blinked, completely thrown by that last comment. He could understand why Moran, even as a man changed from Alpha to Omega, which had to be harrowing and complicated like hell on its own, would feel anger and hurt at the death of his bond mate. With his own unchecked responses, he could understand why the outburst would be so sudden and so vehement, too. It would even account for his desire for vengeance and somewhat the lengths with which he’d gone to in order to cause the maximum amount of anguish he’d managed to put both Sherlock and John himself through in the preceding days.

What it did _not_ explain was why there was also the gratefulness and the relief in those words. Why would someone who had been bonded to someone, even a psychopath like Moriarty, express _relief_ of all things when the killing of said bond mate was mentioned.

Unless…

“You didn’t bond with him voluntarily, did you?” John asked, certain of his answer before he had even finished speaking. It certainly made a lot of sense.

“What do you think?” the former colonel snarled, turning his attention towards the other ex-soldier, though he didn’t otherwise make any move towards him. In fact, even though he was still snarling, he already seemed a whole lot calmer than he had at the initial outburst. That sounded rather familiar. “You think that just because I was turned into a dainty little Omega, I would swoon and be ever so grateful that that fucker decided to do a hat trick on me, bonding and knocking me up while his drugs raced around my system, changing me into a pleading little whore?” His voice rose steadily as he spoke until he was once more almost shouting at the end.

John exchanged the briefest of glances with Sherlock that shared the growing sense of at least partial understanding before he shook his head in response to the other changed Omega.

“No,” he said, and buggering hell if he didn’t feel just the tiniest amount of sympathy for the man sitting across from him, despite everything that he had caused them.

He knew very well what it was like to be on the receiving end of unwanted attention from Jim Moriarty while he was starting to go into Heat. It was true that he had done his best to resist, but he hadn’t been quite able to in the end, and only the consulting criminal’s interest in seeing how Sherlock would react to finding John in such a state prevented him from being raped there and then. Add to that the fact that Moran had undoubtedly had a lot more hormones, blood displacements and whatever else was in that concoction injected into his system in order to try and overrun the ones of his own body and secondary gender than John would ever need as a Rh negative, recessive Beta, and it was hardly any wonder that he had been rendered easy prey for an Alpha to exploit.

It was just his exceptional bad luck that the Alpha ready to exploit it was also the one responsible for it in the first place.

“No,” he repeated, “but I don’t get why he’d bite as well as impregnate you?”

Moran seemed to have gained almost complete control over himself again, apart from one thing; one hand was repeatedly clenching and unclenching while the other had settled on and was gently rubbing at a stomach that was pushing against fabric in a very tell-tale way.

“Your little Sherlock isn’t the only Alpha capable of being overwhelmed by pheromones from an Omega whose body is pumping out far more of them than it should, not being acclimatized to just how much of it that it should produce,” he said with a smile, though there was absolutely no humour in it at all.

John didn’t respond, as he genuinely didn’t know what to say right then.

Sherlock, on the other hand, did not seem to have the same problem.

“Was it the misogynistic tendencies towards Omegas that made him decide to turn you into an Omega in the first place,” he asked, “or was it just the challenge of seeing whether such a masculine, dominant Alpha who had more than enough Alpha hormones pumping around his body could actually become an Omega at all that he found interesting?”

“As if you’re in any position to take the moral high ground here, Sherlock,” their stalker spat. “Attempted rape of a man in a compromised position only avoided due to John’s quick thinking, abandonment of someone you promised you would protect, cold blooded murder of an unarmed, unconscious man, impregnation of your partner, even though you knew from the notes that it was more than dangerous to put your new bond mate through something like that. Need I go on?”

A muscle in the brunette’s jaw ticked for a moment or two. It was the only immediate, visible indication that Moran had managed to touch a nerve with his words.

When he spoke, his voice was completely calm and composed, though his eyes were narrowed and rather cold. “No, I don’t think so. I never claimed to have the moral high ground, Sebastian. I am not a good man.”

He put one hand down to rest on the blonde’s shoulder. “John may claim otherwise, but I know that I am not. I never was, but I will try to the very limit of my abilities to be one for the sake of my bond mate and my unborn son. However, it will not stop me from putting a stop to you if it means protecting my family, whatever the means that takes to accomplish.”

“Why haven’t you done so already, then?”

Sherlock wasn’t baited by the comment. “You are not a challenge, Moran. Your boss might have been, once, but you are nothing more than a clever thug that has made the mistake of continuing to endanger the ones I hold dear. All I care about is keeping those people safe, so your only interest to me is the threat you pose to them. That has been my focus and it will continue to be so.”

“Even when you have snipers’ scopes focused on you and your little breeder?”

“Even then, yes. If you actually wanted to kill either of us, you have had plenty of opportunity to do so before this point in time. You are far too practical to merely be in it for the fun of it or for something as mundane as simple vengeance, at least for one done through the method you chose and for this extended amount of time.” He gave the small, tight smile that he used when he was putting people down. “Which then brings us back to time running out, for us, possibly, but much more so for you.”

John frowned in puzzlement. He noticed that although Moran remained relatively calm, the muscles in his faces made occasional twitches and the hand on his stomach looked much more protective than it had previously. He adjusted the grip on the gun while keeping it steady and pointing straight at their intruder.

There might be people pointing guns at them at that very moment and there might be no hope of rescue from Mycroft, what with the mole in his operations and everything, but that did not mean he wouldn’t shoot. If he was going to die, then he would do so while protecting his family, just like his bond mate was attempting to. He was no shrinking little Omega, whatever this absolute shit stain of a gender confused man had tried to pull on him physically and mentally, and he would be damned if he didn’t at least do his damnedest. As he always had.

“How so?” he asked.

“Our brave colonel here is on the verge of a miscarriage,” the Alpha replied. “His second one, if the bitter tinge to his otherwise sweetly rotten scent is any indication at all. I have to say, that does explain just why you chose the role of ‘éminence grise’, as John so succinctly put it, for yourself in all of this, when you’re normally much more of a hands-on person. I would have put it purely down to your scent giving you away, though, so I suppose I have to give you some credit for that.”

The Alpha-turned-Omega gave a mock bow from his seated position. “I am touched by your praise.”

“What has his miscarriage to do with time running out?”

“Think, John. You are a doctor and a moderately bright one at that. It should be painfully obvious why by now and consequently why he hasn’t shot us yet.”

If the situation hadn’t been what it was, John would be torn between feeling the usual annoyance at his intellect being insulted and being relieved at Sherlock’s regained ability to act like he normally did. As it was, he mostly let the comment wash over him, apart from considering the implications.

He fought an urge to gag and another to put his hand down to touch his stomach much like Moran was doing when realization hit.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, cliffhanger, my old friend! ;)  
> I was, as in the first story, going for making the penultimate chapter actually part of the last chapter, but it's kept getting longer and longer and so the flow goes better with a cut here :)  
> If there is any thing you are still unsure of or that doesn't make sense to you, you are more than welcome to ask me. Keep in mind that, 1, it might come up in the next chapter, and 2, the cardiac arrest has lost me a lot of things stored in my brain, including some of the threads I had planned for this story. I have tried to recreate them as best I can, but there might be slip ups.  
> I'd be grateful for your usual, kind, constructive feedback. :)


	15. Do you feel lucky?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John decides that he has had just about enough of Moran fucking around with them, but he hasn't taken into account his body working against him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I've done it again! I honestly thought that I could get it completed with just one more chapter, but it keeps getting longer and longer and I talked it over with a friend, who flat out said that one chapter with that much happening would bog the story down and I have to say, I agree.  
> This is not a short chapter, though, and I can say that the wait for the final chapter won't be long, so hopefully that all helps.  
> Thank you all for the feedback once more, it warms me and makes me press on even when I am unsure. :D ^^

He managed to keep it all down, somehow, but as it was, he paled quite considerably when it did hit. He also got another stab of pain in the lower part of his belly, but he didn’t notice it in the wash of the other sensations. “You…” he started to say, but choked on the word.

Moran had an odd expression on his face; it was equal parts angry, sardonic, pained and understanding. In a way, it was quite unsettling to witness.

“Am not just about to lose this kid as well, but about to die myself as well, yes,” he said. “Omega and Alpha hormones really do not mix, not even when you’re given an implanted womb on the second go instead of letting it grow inside you, but then you can probably read all of that out of the notes you were given, can’t you?” _The notes that I need in order to survive, the ones that I have been searching for throughout all of this._ The words weren’t spoken out loud, but they hung heavily in the air nevertheless.

Sherlock didn’t answer the question posed, nor did he address the words left unsaid. “You must have thought you had gotten your hands on something different than what my experiment actual was,” he said instead, “when you had someone break in here yesterday. What I find interesting is how desperate you are to keep the baby of someone you so obviously despise, even more so considering your general opinion on Omegas.”

“It’s still my child!” Moran exclaimed, genuine distress in his voice. The hand on his stomach pressed hard, as if his actions would somehow prevent whatever might threaten the life growing inside of him. “My precious little girl, she’s grown so big…” He trailed off, his focus completely shifted for a moment.

When he refocused and looked back up at them, for a moment there was not much of the former colonel Alpha to be seen; instead there was only a pregnant Omega desperate for his unborn child.

Despite what he and his bond mate had put him through and the less than pleasant feelings he held for them, John felt his heart go out to someone else who had suffered what he had, with the added pain of not only having the Omega hormones clashing with the Alpha ones inherent to his system, but also as a consequence having lost one child already.

Then he remembered just what the man had been willing to put the blonde and his family through for the sake of that child, what they had all suffered on that account, and his resolve hardened once more. His finger on the trigger started to squeeze inward.

He felt the hand on his shoulder squeeze in a kind of response almost as soon as he started pressing the trigger. Not turning his head, he glanced up at the younger Holmes out of the corner of his eye. The pale eyes looked back at him, also askance, and something was visible in them that made his finger ease on the trigger just enough that the risk of it going off without intention was again minimal. Not yet.

The fact that he had pressed the trigger hadn’t escaped the notice of the other former soldier.

“Easy there, Johnny-boy,” Moran said, his focus back on them and his composure seemingly back as well. When one considered Moriarty’s ability to oscillate between calm and mad and Moran’s apparent closer connection with his bond mate, it was assuredly something to note and be worried about. “We don’t want you pressing that trigger by accident and have the brains of your brave, strong Alpha blown out all over your lovely living room floor, do we?”

“If that’s what it takes to stop you.”

Moran spread his arms. “I’m sitting here, completely harmless. If you fancy taking a shot, go right ahead.”

John had to admit, if only to himself, that he was tempted. Sorely tempted. But he didn’t know just how many snipers were aiming their guns at them and whether they’d be able to keep from getting positively butchered as soon as either of them even tried to harm Moran. Then there were all the questions still clogging his mind that he wanted answers to and something else as well.

“Why would I give you the pleasure of going out in such style when you are very close not just to lose your … little girl, but to die yourself when your Heat hits?” he chose to ask instead. “That’s another thing, actually. You’re evidently far further along than I am, but you have managed not to have a Heat yet. How the hell did you manage that?”

“Why would I tell you that?”

“Same reason you came here in the first place," Sherlock replied, “as well as all the other things you’ve been up to in the past few days. Same reason you’ve not just had us or whatever remains of your bond mate’s web liquidated. You’re genuinely terrified of another Heat hitting you, but you haven’t been able to stave it off, so it must have been something that only Moriarty knew of. Hence why you come here; the notes.”

 _But the notes were incomplete and convoluted at that. You told me that yourself,_ John thought. _I hardly think you’d lie to me about that, since it would benefit absolutely nothing. I wouldn’t know one way or the other. Of course Moran doesn’t necessarily know that, so there the advantage would definitely be ours._

“The time frame fits. You hate your bond mate and love the child he’s given you, but having the bond shattered by an unnatural death of one partner is going to upset what is already a rather fragile balance, which was maintained at least partly by a few chemicals Moriarty gave you. He must have had people working on it, though, to have worked out the formulas and so on.”

The former colonel sneered again, but it didn’t seem to be at them as such. “Idiot with a minor position of power thought that by killing them, he’d have me out of the way so he could get to the top easily,” he said. “I suppose he didn’t reckon with being knocked six ways from Sunday for his trouble. Silly sod had the cheek of dying on me.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t just have him shot,” John said. “Seems more cost efficient.”

Of all things, that got a short laugh out of Moran. It was closer to bark than an actual laugh, but it was no less surprising for that.

“You’d have been a wonder in my unit, Captain, Beta or not.”

“Hardly think you’d have tolerated me, Colonel,” the blonde shot back. “Most Alpha officers weren’t terribly keen on me getting even halfway as high up the ranks as I actually managed. Not cut of the right cloth and all that bloody rot. Don’t really think that you’d be the one to go against the grain on that.”

Something sparked in his brain as he talked. It might not exactly be the smartest of moves, but it might goat Moran into…something. Otherwise he feared they would be stuck there until what was effectively their captor had gotten what he had come for, and then they would simply be put down like mongrels that had outlived any shred of usefulness. That or he’d be the one to be shot, in order to make Sherlock talk.

Whatever would end up being the case, he could see no real way out of it that wouldn’t land at least one of them in pain, despite what he and Sherlock had discussed previously. While he most certainly did not want anything to happen to his child, he wanted Sherlock to get hurt even less.

That might seem cruel and uncaring to someone else, but if he was given the choice between losing Sherlock and dying himself, he would always choose the latter, without being even the slightest bit melodramatic. When it came down to it, the world was much more in need of Sherlock Holmes than it was of John Watson. Especially when there was the definite chance that if they could get the embryo out of him quickly and implant it in some other Omega with a viable womb within a certain time window, the child could be carried to term without further complications.

In any case, he was going to see exactly what reaction he could coax out of the man. Sherlock might want a further explanation of what exactly had been done to Moran and how his change had been different than John; it was his Alpha instincts warring with his scientific curiosity, creating a potentially dangerous dichotomy. But even though he felt vengeful and emotionally wrought from all of this as well, the only thing the doctor wanted to do was to get the bastard as far away from any of them as he could.

“I’ll tell you one thing for nothing, though,” John started as he shifted on his seat once more, feeling the hand on his shoulder tighten as it followed his movement. He kept his tone as placid as he possibly could. “You might not have liked me very much as a Beta, and you certainly don’t like me much as a fellow changed Omega, but your dear old bond mate seemed to like me.”

“You were an Omega in the throes of Heat, of course he’d like you then.” A muscle twitched in the cheek of the former colonel, but otherwise there wasn’t much of a reaction.

“Oh, no, before that,” the blonde said, letting an edge of mocking enter his voice. “Long before that. Were you one of the snipers at the pool? Must have been. He’d want to have his Omega close by for a job like that, I reckon. Hidden just out of sight, one of those little dots pointing straight at me. Good thing you’re not a jealous type, then. You must have noticed then just how much attention he was paying to me. Getting right up close, several times.”

He felt Sherlock tense beside him, but put his free hand up to caress the hand on his shoulder. The tension slowly leaked out, as if the Alpha had sussed what he was up to, which was probably a fair assessment of the situation.  “What was it then, love? Phone calls, wasn’t it? Using Mycroft’s little cameras to spy on us.”

He paused for a moment before delivering the last card, which would hopefully be at least something of a trump card. The muscle twitching in the cheek had gotten significantly more pronounced as he’d been speaking. In addition, the upper lip was pulling ever so slightly upwards and the hands were subtly starting to clench and unclench. Getting somewhere, then, at any rate. Best be ready.

 “Oh, yes, he even went to the trouble to show up, personally, at the library, when I was all on my own. Texted me first, of course, but then he came by to give me those notes. Must have been feeling really generous, giving up notes like that when he didn’t leave a backup for his own mate. Wonder why that would be?”

He smiled a tad nastily, hoping to drive the wedge in a little deeper. Alpha the man might have been, and he was certainly not a stable Omega now, to put it mildly, but the fact of the matter was that he would be plagued with the same sort of instincts as John had since his change. Possibly even more so when you took into account the fact that Moran had clearly been changed for far longer than the blonde.

Whatever the case, the protective instincts towards bond mate and family was one that John knew very well. Having one’s Alpha give attention to another Omega would cut pretty deep, even if you were saddled with a bond mate you didn’t choose and had grown to hate.

John felt another stab of pain in the pit of his belly. This time he did register it on a conscious level, possibly due to how much stronger it was than the previous one, but he did not have time to deal with it, so he had to ignore it.

Instead he chose to press on. “Of course, what was really surprising was the text that I received afterwards. Wanted me to come play with him, I believe. Not the first time he asked that of me, either, and certainly not the last time.” That it had been more Alpha in nature than anything purely Moriarty was a minor detail he didn’t think needed mentioning, and neither did the significantly creepier nature of it.

He paused again, for dramatic effect. "Tell me, did he really just fancy a ménage-a-trois with two former military officers or was he growing that tired of you already? I mean, I know he was changeable, but one would think at least the Alpha instincts would make him prefer his own mate over someone else, but perhaps he didn’t care about your little – “

That did it.

Moran rose from his seat as if he’d been ejected from it, a snarl bordering on a roar issuing from him as he cleared the coffee table and kept moving. His eyes burned with injured anger and a myriad other emotions.

John didn’t hesitate. As soon he saw the man coming towards him, the finger on the trigger pressed inwards.

Unfortunately for the former Beta Captain, the pain he had ignored earlier flared up again at that moment, much stronger than before as though it wanted to make damn sure there was no way he could ignore it. In fact, it was strong enough to make him involuntarily bend in pain, which made his left arm drop slightly. The left arm, which held the gun.

Somewhat more fortunately, almost as soon as he started to curl in on himself, the bony hand on his right shoulder slid rapidly over and down to cup his elbow and push the arm upwards again before he had fully pressed the trigger, thus ensuring that the trajectory of the bullet remained true to the intended target.

Whether Moran didn’t manage to try and avoid the bullet, he didn’t have a chance to see it firing in time to try and avoid or he just didn’t care about it, there was no way of knowing. Whatever the truth of the matter might be, when the bullet pierced his body, his momentum kept him going for a step or two more. Then he stumbled and collapsed just in front of them, a tiny noise of surprised disbelief escaping him as he fell.

He was not the only one who hit the floor; as soon as the bullet had hit, both residents of 221B had pulled at each other to get them down on the floor. It would not make a lot of difference to the snipers, but there was no reason to make it easier on them.

They also both tried to shield the other with their own body, which resulted in a short scuffle that John quickly lost, both due to Alpha strength prevailing and the pain in his belly that had become an insistent throb. He lay curled on the floor besides Moran, shielded by his mate positioned on all fours above him.

“Sherlock…” the Omega said after a moment.

“Quiet, John!” the brunette hissed, hunkering down even lower as if that would somehow protect John better.

“Sherlock…if we were going to be shot…it would have happened by now…don’t you think?” The sentence came out in pants between the pain rolling stronger and stronger through his body. He would feel annoyed with how he was treated by his mate in other circumstances, but the pain occupied most of his attention.

“Who’s to say that there hasn’t been something else cooked up?”

John was about to respond, but suddenly the front door banged open and people began storming inside. The Alpha above him began to growl in as threatening a manner as he possibly could while attempting to shield John from that angle, too.

The growling stopped after no more than a few moments, however; as soon as Sherlock registered just who had come bursting through the door, he was able to tamp down on his instincts to at least a certain degree.

They flared up almost immediately, though, when he registered the very low whimpering coming from underneath him. He shifted his gaze down immediately, to see John curled as far in on himself as he possibly could, the whimpers kept quiet by lips kept firmly closed. Sweat had started to bead on his forehead, however, and his eyes were screwed tightly shut.

“John…?” he asked, his voice little more than a loud whisper and rather uncertain, at that.

All he got in response was a low groan of pain and a flickering of eyes under the closed lids.

Sherlock was vaguely aware of Moran being moved beside him, but his attention didn’t shift away from his suffering mate, mind frantically going through options of what he could possibly do, until a hand landed on his shoulder and was pulling at it.

He turned with a growl, ready to attack whoever had dared to even get close when his pregnant mate was in distress, even as his nostrils registered the unthreatening scent of Beta.

“Easy there, Sherlock.” It was Lestrade, looking surprisingly tough in the SO1 uniform he was sporting. Around them, more people dressed in SO1 gear was going through the flat.

“Easy,” Lestrade repeated, taking a step backwards and holding up his hands. They stared at each for a moment, then the Beta sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “God, is this going to become a thing? You threatening to bite my head off when I come rushing in to help you two bleeding wankers out of trouble?”

But Sherlock wasn’t in the mood for hurling insults. “You are…” he said instead, not voicing the entire thought out loud, “that must mean…you must have direct contact. Give me your phone.”

“You what?”

“I need to get John to hospital, Lestrade!” the Alpha snapped in response. “He’s only spared the pain right now because he’s unconscious!”

A smell that had not been immediately recognizable due to the scent markers particular to Sebastian Moran now made itself known. It was the iron scent of blood, by then rather pungent in the air around them, and it was coming from where John was lying.

Both Sherlock and Lestrade began to search for indications of a wound with their eyes. As soon as they located the source, however, the consulting detective paled visibly while the detective inspector cursed loudly.

Lestrade dug in his pocket, pulled out his phone, pressed a single button and held it up to his ear. The call went through almost immediately, which was just as well, since Sherlock was upright and practically ripping the phone from the Beta in a flash.

“Mycroft, I don’t care just how much have possibly been leaked or how busy you are. I need an ambulance and I need it _now!”_

“I had actually thought of that, dear brother,” came the voice on the other end of the line. It was hardly what could be called the usual calm and collected voice, but the redhead was clearly doing the best he could. “I had Anthea go with one instead of in an SO1 car, so it should be with you in a few moments, allowing for traffic.”

There was silence on both ends for a moment. Then, very quietly, Sherlock spoke.

“Thank you. For everything.”

“You are more than welcome, Sherlock. Now go and save your mate. Oh, and pass the phone back to Lestrade, would you?”

Sherlock handed the phone back without a word. Then he bent down, put his arms around his mate as gently as he possibly could, trying and failing to ignore the whine of pain the shift elicited, and straightened up quickly yet carefully.

He then strode towards the still open front door, careful of his burden, but utterly ignoring the other people still swarming around the flat. As he made his way down the stairs, the sound of the ambulance siren could be heard coming ever closer. He adjusted his grip on his mate, unconsciously also tightening it significantly as he did so.

“She…lck?”

John had opened his eyes for a moment, but they were unfocused and full of pain as they gazed up at the man holding him.

“It’s alright, John, I’ve got you,” Sherlock said softly, sounding much more confident than he felt. “Don’t worry, the ambulance will be here very soon. Just hang on.” He knew he was merely rattling off words that he’d heard elsewhere that were meant to comfort, but with the fear clawing at his insides, he couldn’t help it. He had to say something, if only to banish that pained, panicked look on the doctor’s face.

Somehow, John was lucid enough to hear him and give a small, weak smile at the words. “Love you…both…,” he whispered before his eyes slid shut again, thus robbing the brunette of his chance to curse at him for choosing those words in particular.

As he stood there, frozen in worry and still assaulted by the horrible scent of blood mixing with his Omega’s scent, the ambulance came to a stop a little way away. The doors at the back of the vehicle burst open before it had come to a complete stop and two men in paramedic uniform sprang out with a stretcher coming right behind them, ready to take John into their care.

First off, Sherlock refused to let them get near, his instincts once more springing to the fore, telling him that they were there to hurt his mate further or take him away; neither option was in any way acceptable. He snarled and pulled away, cradling his burden even closer to him.

“We ain’t gonna hurt ye or yer little mate,” one of the paramedics said in a voice that was jovial and patient, keeping his distance and his arms spread. He had obviously dealt with territorial, aggressive Alphas before. “But we need t’get him inside now.”

“Sherlock, let them do their job.” Of all things, it was Anthea speaking. She had been sitting in the passenger seat, but had come out of the car and was walking towards them. For once she wasn’t looking down at a phone, but giving the situation her full attention. “They are going to take him, they will cool him down inside the ambulance and otherwise take care of him the best way possible until we arrive at the hospital. What _you_ will do after letting them take him is go to sit in the passenger seat with me quietly and quickly, so that John can be brought to the hospital as fast and safely as possible. Is that understood?”

It suddenly struck Sherlock just why she wasn’t only a strong Alpha in her own right, but had also managed to rise to the position of not only Mycroft’s personal assistant, but his most trusted employee. The elder Holmes wasn’t too fond of having Alphas as his immediate subordinates, as that more often than not led to unnecessary power struggles, but with the no nonsense, efficient and utterly unflappable manner of the woman before him, the consulting detective began to see why.

Wordlessly, his Alpha instincts protesting fiercely throughout, he let the larger of the paramedics gently pry John from his arms and lay him down on the stretcher just as carefully. He watched for a few moments as they wheeled the stretcher back to and into the ambulance, hooking up the ECG equipment, the respirator and various other devices as fast as they could.

A hand was placed on his lower arm, pushing insistently at it, and his gaze shifted back to Anthea, who nodded her head in the direction of the car. He obeyed her silent command, limbs strangely gangly as he moved them, not in control of them at all.

A constantly litany of _Not John, must protect him, failed to protect him, going to lose him, lose our baby, must save them, save John, lost without him, love him, not John, please!_ ran through his head throughout his climb into the ambulance and the entire ride towards the hospital.

His rational mind, otherwise presently buried beneath the roiling volcano that was his emotions and instincts, piped up long enough to wonder why on earth they weren’t going to St. Bartholomew’s. They knew people there; they were hardly going to be on Moran’s payroll, so it would be safe enough.

It was only when he got an answer that he realized that he’d actually spoken the question out loud.

“Bart’s is not only four minutes further away from Baker Street than the St. Pancras hospital; it is also a high security risk right now,” Anthea said from the seat between him and the driver. “It would be stupid to risk John at a place where the building has already been broken into by the organisation.”

“Yes,” was all Sherlock could say in response. That did make sense, but how would the people at St. Pancras treat his mate? Why would they be any better than the usual dross of workaholic, strung out morons that populated such places? How could he ever entrust his John and their little boy to anyone like that?

He had to work out just what the chemicals were that Moriarty had given to Moran. He had to answer the question of why those chemicals had been enough to keep the colonel’s body from pumping far too much of that particular hormone into the body, thus staving off the horrifying prospect of not only miscarrying, but bleeding out in the process.

From inside his shirt he drew the by then somewhat crinkled notes. He had kept them close to him ever since he had lost those other documents in the cab and seen what the consequences of that were. So when he had gotten up shortly after John, he had taken the notes from their hiding spot and placed them between his vest and his hastily buttoned shirt.

There had to be something that he had missed in them, something that he could use, at least to tell the doctors who would be treating John. There had to be _something_.

So intent was he on the numbers, symbols and half-explained phrases in the notes that he almost didn’t notice when they came to a stop. Only when he was once again pushed at by Anthea, her attention back on her mobile, did he refocus. Notes gripped tightly in one hand, he opened the door and was out of the vehicle in time to see the paramedics carefully wheeling the stretcher out. The equipment they had had on John while driving had been taken off so he could be brought into the hospital, except for the telemetry unit that had replaced the ECG.

As staff came rushing out of the building, ready to help in any way they possibly could, they surrounded the stretcher, completely crowding Sherlock out in the process. He wasn’t going to be cut off that easily, though, so he used his long legs to keep up with them as they manoeuvred the Omega onto a proper hospital bed and then onwards into the labyrinth of corridors that made up the hospital, just like any other.

He followed them throughout the journey, keeping enough of a distance so as not to anger someone too much that he’d be thrown out, which he most certainly did not want, while also making certain that he had John within his sight. The fact that the blonde was breathing slowly, somewhat shallowly, combined with his complexion that was getting ever paler, did not assuage the fears pounding on the doors of his Mind Palace one iota. Nor did the talk and instructions going back and forth between the medical staff as they walked.

The staff went through what seemed like the hundredth door and Sherlock was about to follow them as he had up until then. This time, however, he was stopped by one of the nurses. He growled slightly and attempted to push past the impediment, but the nurse held firm.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but we cannot allow you in there.”

“He is my _mate_.” How he managed to reign in his anger and fear to a point where he only sounded irate instead of boiling furious, he had no idea.

“Yes, I know that,” the nurse replied, not intimidated in the slightest, even though he was a Beta in the presence of an Alpha, “and I understand why you want to be in there. I really do. But the thing is…won’t you come and sit down for a moment? You look exhausted. I promise you he is in the very best of hands.”

Perhaps it was the soothing tone of voice. Maybe it was something to do with his sense of helplessness winning through for a moment. He didn’t know. Whatever the case, Sherlock let himself be led to a row of chairs that was thankfully located only ten yards down the hall and sat down. He did fix the nurse with the best glare he could muster throughout, though.

The thing is that while they were briefed on what could be the cause of it, they have not yet worked out exactly how to stop the haemorrhaging without provoking a miscarriage.” The man gave a soft smile. “Pretty unique case there, your mate.”

“He always has been,” Sherlock said quietly, finding it a trite comment and yet so achingly true at the same time.

The soft smile broadened a bit. “I’ll bet. But until they figure it out, he needs to be cooled down and quite significantly at that. Medical hypothermia has proved quite effective with cardiac arrests – “

“When the lowering of body temperature reduces the need for oxygen for both body and brain,” Sherlock interrupted, brow furrowed as he contemplated, “thus also decreasing the metabolism as well as the amount of waste products pushed through the system, which will hopefully also include the hormones that are the most likely cause of all of this.”

The nurse blinked, more surprised at the concise, yet accurate description than angry or annoyed with having been interrupted. “Quite,” he said. He paused for a short moment. “You obviously know quite a lot about such procedures already, so I’m guessing that your instincts are playing havoc with you.”

The Alpha didn’t answer. The Beta nodded, as though the silence was answer enough, which it might have been. He then leant forward slightly, daring to put his surprisingly broad hand on one of Sherlock’s knees.

“We were briefed before you and your mate arrived here. I don’t know all the details, of course, I’m only a nurse, but I understand that your situation is quite…unique, and the doctors know that, too. There won’t be anyone more anxious to study and take samples than to actually help the two of you through this. Well, the three of you, of course.”

With that, he stood up, looking down at the still seated consulting detective. “None of my business, of course, and I know sod all about the realities of the situation, either, but your Omega seems to have pulled the best possible Alpha with whom to face the troubles he’s been thrust into. It’s great when something like that happens. Well, best get back, now. Take comfort, Mr. Watson-Holmes.” He gave one last smile before turning and walking briskly back down the way they had come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whether this is a good place to end the chapter or not I do not know, since I intended to make it one chapter and thus didn't keep track of where would be a good place to stop. Hope it works out for you, nevertheless. :D I had more to say, but in the wash of tiredness I've forgotten.  
> Feedback is dearly loved and treasured as always, even if it's to call me cruel or a tosser.


	16. All's well that...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft and Sherlock rush to find a way to save John and the little one, with the help of Lestrade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end is here! See, I promised it wouldn't be long, didn't I? It did help that I had a good portion of this chapter written when I posted the last one, so there's that. Good thing I did, though, since this one still ended up as 9k+ chapter. I thought about posting the epilogue separately, but nah. :)
> 
> Thank you to all the kind people following this story and the previous one, the encouraging and tremendously sweet feedback you have given and the patience you've shown! It's been a priviledge. :D

Sherlock sat there, in the strangely deserted waiting area, with the notes still clenched tightly in one hand and no coat on. How long he sat there for, he wouldn’t have been able to tell, but the fingers of dawn slowly crept their way through the windows, clashing with the fluorescent light of the hall.

His mind was stuck between going a thousand miles an hour trying to work exactly what could be done, running through scenarios and solutions, and producing the white noise of panic over John in there on the surgical table, in a medically induced coma, at an extremely high risk of suffering internal bleeding, among other things, when they had to bring him out of the coma and the blonde’s body would try and reject the embryo, possibly even the womb itself.

In the midst of all of that utter chaos, one thing broke through and was so very insignificant and completely irrelevant that it stole his attention completely.

“Mr. Watson-Holmes?” he asked out loud, face scrunching up in nonplussed disbelief.

“Apologies,” came a voice from a little way down the hall, “but I took the liberty of registering the both of you under that name when you left me with the task of the legal documents after your bonding. Given the circumstances, though, I don’t think you are going to object, are you?”

Mycroft sat down beside his younger brother, who turned to him with the same look upon his face, made all the stranger by the trail of tears down fine cheeks. The brunette opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He closed it again with a click of teeth, his expression becoming one of deduction as he searched his brother’s face for any tell that would gain him information.

When Mycroft moved his hand over to grasp Sherlock’s own hand tightly, however, he stopped and just stared.

“Lestrade has Moran in custody,” the elder Holmes said, in a voice softer and gentler than any he had used before. “He screamed to be taken to hospital, but as he is in no immediate danger of dying,” he continued, pausing for a very brief moment at the wince Sherlock gave at the mention of dying, “it seems as though none of the people at New Scotland Yard were in much of a hurry to hospitalize him, or even find him a doctor.”

The ginger Alpha flashed a humourless smile. “It seems the lesson here is never underestimate a Beta. Lestrade was quite vindictive with him, I am given to understand. Something about Moran getting shot again if he didn’t cooperate, and Lestrade wouldn’t be hitting just his shoulder, either.”

Sherlock was only half hearing what he was being told. “Mycroft…John…John is…” He couldn’t say it; the words wouldn’t leave his throat. Instead they formed into barbs as they got stuck. “ _Please_!” he finally managed to say.

“I said I would do everything in my power to help you and your mate, Sherlock, and I do intend to stick to that, whatever obstacles we might face. The surgeons in there are not only some of the finest specialists in Omega biology, but they have been checked for any possible link with Moriarty’s network, and there was none to be found.”

“How can you be so sure of that?” Sherlock asked, his tone harsh. He felt that it was a very valid question, given the circumstances.

There was the tiniest quirk of a lip, but there was not a hint of mockery to be seen. “Because I had Anthea do the check herself and she could find no indication whatsoever.” He got a very small nod of acknowledgement in reply, the pale eyes still fixed on him. “Trust them. They will do everything in their power to help.” The unspoken words ‘ _to save him and your baby’_ hung in the air between them.

"But what if they can’t?!” the consulting detective blurted out, his fears getting the better of him and cracking through to the outside. “I have been wracking my brains ever since that bastard gave John the notes for a viable solution and I have nothing, nothing at all! There are too many variables to even contemplate beginning to administer anything to counter it!” He was shouting by the end of the sentence, but he could not care less.

Mycroft had the most horrifyingly caring, sympathetic look on his face, which in other circumstances would have made the younger Holmes recoil.

“Much as you don’t want to hear it, your knowledge does have its limits. You are clever, Sherlock, brilliant, even, yes, and have the ability to make incredible leaps in logic, but that does not mean you know everything there is to know.”

He paused to give his brother the opportunity to rally with a diatribe on the attack on his intelligence. None was forthcoming. A muscle worked in the jaw, but that was all the visible indication it had gotten to him there was.

“Trust that they know what they are doing. Of course,” Mycroft added, as if he had just thought of it, “both they and we have been granted a bit of extra time while John is in his induced coma and then afterwards slowly brought out of it. If you honestly doubt the abilities, and in particular the knowledge, of the surgeons in there, then perhaps you should share the information you have. Or sit here and worry yourself round the bend without being able to do anything at all. Your decision.”

Before the consulting detective had a chance to answer either in the confirmative or negative, the sound of a phone ring tone echoed rather loudly through the otherwise quiet hall. The ginger Alpha quickly answered it, but throughout the call he only made a few noises.

“Apologies, but it seems like I am needed elsewhere.” With that he rose up from his heat, pocketed the phone and dusted himself off.

“Crucial affairs of state?”

Beneath the brash, dismissive tone of voice Mycroft heard the small boy he had known growing up; a small boy completely out of his depth, thrown by the harshness and incomprehensibility of the world he lived in. then as now it made the heart he usually kept very much under lock and key clench violently.

“Of course there are always those, but this is a little closer to home, so to speak. It was Lestrade; he wants one of us to come down to the Yard as quickly as possible, and since your place right now is here, as it should be, it falls to me to be the messenger.”

“Why not just send Anthea?”

“She is dealing with other matters, which gives me the freedom to help my family in whatever way I can. As for why she was the one to go with you to the hospital when I or someone else could have gone just as easily…well…,” he flashed another small, genuine smile, “call it a vested interest in your little son. She has sent me several links to sites offering high quality baby clothes and other such items over the past week.”

He leant down a bit and placed a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “You are not alone, Sherlock, not by a long shot, whatever you may otherwise claim. All of this shows that it’s not you against the world, or even you and your bond mate against the world; there are people who care for the both of you and will do whatever they can to help you.”

He quirked an eyebrow, as if to let Sherlock know he was aware of his own earlier statements on the matter and wasn’t angry to be proven wrong.

“So let them help.”

With that, he stood up straight and walked back the way they had both come, the ever-present umbrella clicking in counterpoint to his steps.

That left Sherlock entirely alone in the waiting area as well as the hall, notes on his knees and fingers running absentmindedly over them as he stared out in front of him, unseeing.

He couldn’t just sit there. As it was, he had been driven almost round the bend with worry for his family’s safety since they had returned and John had received that text from what turned out to be Moran, and there he had been able to at least test out theories and _do_ something.

This…this was so much worse.

He stood up abruptly, like some very stylish Jack-in-the-box, and made his way towards the room where they had put his doctor. They might not let him in, but with even the slightest bit of luck they would at least listen to what he had to say, and in particular what he had to show them.

_Hang in there, John,_ he thought as he strode as quickly as he could _. I promised I would take care of you and our son and I will, if I have to walk to Hell and back. I would do it twice over if it meant keeping you both safe._

He couldn’t be arsed to care that he was being exceedingly sentimental in his thoughts. It was utterly irrelevant in the circumstances.

 

* * *

 

“Ah, Mycroft. I thought it would be you who turned up.”

The elder Holmes could have pointed out that he was the one Lestrade called, but then he did send others out in his place, so he kept his mouth shut on that front.

“Quite so. I hope the reason for my summoning is a happy one,” he said instead.

The detective inspector nodded. He had chosen to see the Alpha in his office and had been sitting in front of his desk. He rose to his feet when the Alpha came in, not so much in a move of deference as an indication of practicality and efficiency.

“Right, yes. Time is of the essence, after all. First off, we managed to get a whole lot of information out of Moran. Took a bit, but we got there in the end.”

“I am not certain you should own up to such things in front of a person with a minor role in government.”

Lestrade’s dark brown eyes fixed on the taller man, eyebrows raised in a clear display of disbelief at that statement, but he otherwise kept his opinions on the matter to himself.

“Anyway, thought you might want to have a small chat with him yourself – he’s just downstairs in one of the interview rooms.”

_Best not to think what has gone on before,_ Mycroft thought, _though it’s hardly a thing anyone is going to call you out on, given the circumstances._

He put out a hand to stop the Beta moving towards the door. “Tempting as the offer most certainly are, and I do believe I shall take you up on it later on, I have confidence that you have been able to…extract from Moran the most relevant information for the situation.”

A grin spread across Lestrade’s face at that. It was happy enough on the surface, but a hint of something darker lurked in it.

“I’ll up you one on that,” he said. “As I said, it took us a while to get information out of him, but then he suddenly bent over with some sort of stomach pain. It didn’t seem like anything important to any of us, but he reacted like someone’s bloody well stabbed him in the gut. Didn’t have a reaction remotely close to that out of him before, even when his bullet wound was treated, though, and he kept talking about something that he had to find, going frantic in his search for it. Decked Anderson when he tried to brush him off; he’s got quite the right hook on him, but then again, he was a colonel at one point.

“And it’s this item he had to find that you’ve called me about?” the elder Holmes asked, cutting through to the root of the matter.

“Yes. We found out he had a couple of bottles on him, one of which he downed as soon as he located it and seemed to feel better shortly afterwards. Guessed that it had to have a connection with what you said John’s been going through, so we confiscated the other bottle.” He brought a hand up his jaw, where the blossoming flower of a bruise was visible. “Didn’t go down easily.”

Mycroft smiled and held out his hand. “Well done, Inspector, and thank you. Never let it be said after this that you or your team is incompetent in anyway.”

Lestrade laughed out loud at that as he took the proffered hand and shook it. “You just try and tell your brother that. Not sure we’ll ever earn that amount of praise from him, no matter what we do. But it’s fine.”

He let go of the hand, leaving a small object behind in its palm.

“Glad we could be of assistance. Hope you can make something of that.” A frown passed over his features as realization of something seemed to dawn. “Oh, God, I almost forgot to ask; how is John doing?”

Mycroft, having carefully pocketed the object, paid him the curtesy of not fobbing him off with a platitude. He gave a small grimace. “Sadly far worse than it could have been. It seems like his body had already managed to disgorge quite an excessive amount of the Omega hormone by the time he collapsed; the stabs of pain in the lower abdomen that you saw Moran experience are actually the release of the hormone and the subsequent reaction from the womb and the foetus. So at least the doctor in charge told me.”

The Beta stared at him, eyes wide and face rather pale. “Fucking hell! Is he – “

“No, no,” the Alpha rushed to assure, “he’s alive. Otherwise I would still be there, Sherlock screaming at me in grief and helplessness. They cooled him down in the ambulance, then put him into a medical coma as soon as he got to the hospital, which effectively halts the process in its tracks, at least until they have to bring the temperature back up again. That gives them about twenty-four hours to find a viable solution that will work for both John and for the foetus. I haven’t mentioned it to Sherlock, but they are far from confident of managing that in the time slot available, but this,” he gestured lightly towards his pocket, “this might prove to be the solution they have searched for, especially if they are paired with the notes that Sherlock have been holding onto.”

Greg nodded, the determination that Mycroft had seen when he’d called the detective inspector and his team in present in his expression.

“Right, then. Best not waste any more time here, mucking about. Let me know if there is anything else I can do, okay?”

There was another little tug at the heartstrings of the Alpha at that. “Of course, and thank you, Inspector. Your help has been most invaluable throughout.” He meant it, too.

“Oh, bugger off with your pompous talk, of course I’d bloody well help. They’re my friends.”

_For all your insistence on being alone and not care about the people around you, little brother,_ Mycroft thought as he swiftly made his way out of the building and into a waiting car, _you do have quite the knack for gathering people around you who loves you, are loyal and will come to your aid when you need them. Thank God for that!_

* * *

 

 

Back at the hospital, Sherlock had taken to pacing the immediate length of the hall. His fingers were twitching at his sides, desperate to be holding a cigarette between them, or preferably an entire packet.

He had managed to get hold of the chief doctor, who had been quite civil and reasonably intelligent; when presented with the information on the notes, he had immediately taken them to scrutinize thoroughly. A few of his colleagues had looked over his shoulder as he read, all of them frowning in deep concentration as they assessed the information as well. The consulting detective had looked on, jaw clenched as he fought the urge to shout at them for not focusing on the part that was important, for letting themselves be more fascinated with the possibilities found in there than in saving John.

If he would pause to consider it logically, it would be obvious that they had to examine the entire thing to get an overview of what had been done to the former captain, and subsequently what they were dealing with. It could prove a fatal error if they did not and miscalculated. Better that they took the time to acquaint themselves with the notes than going in haphazardly, only to cause irreparable damage.

That did not stop the feelings and instincts still running amok inside his brain, however, and just as it took a lot not to shout at the medical staff in front of him, it was a considerable hardship not to clutch at his hair and scream for it to _shut up!_

The nurse who had previously offered comfort to him seemed to notice his predicament; he went up and tugged at the sleeve of the chief doctor in order to get his attention. When he had it, he nodded towards Sherlock in a meaningful way and the doctor gave a nod in return and turned his attention to the pained Alpha in front of him.

“Thank you, Mr. Watson-Holmes,” he said, his voice sincere and kind. Sherlock looked at him sharply, which only made him smile. “These notes will help us immensely in what to do when we bring your mate back out of the coma.”

He handed the papers over to the nurse, who went out through another door, the movements followed by pale eyes.

“We’re going to have them photocopied and then you’ll have them right back, I promise,” the Alpha doctor soothed, understanding the turmoil going through the brunette fairly well. “Now, I understand that you have been working on them a bit yourself. Is there anything that you would be able to share with us?”

Sherlock saw clearly what the man was attempting to do, but he couldn’t say he didn’t appreciate it. It would give him something to do besides merely worrying, would conceivably prove beneficial in the end.

He closed his eyes briefly and when he reopened them, his focus was exclusively on the deductions he let fly.

 

* * *

 

 

Due to rush hour setting into a city already plagued with too many cars, despite the congestion charge, it took Mycroft decidedly longer to get from the New Scotland Yard offices on Broadway to St. Pancras than it had the other way, and it was getting on towards midmorning by the time he was walking through the hospital to where he had last seen his brother.

He had tried calling in order to inform him of the good news, but the phone had finished ringing without being picked up, which meant that it was more than likely still back at Baker Street.

There was no Sherlock to be seen when Mycroft made it back to the waiting area, but after asking a passing nurse, he was directed to a door, seemingly no different from the others that lined the hall.

When he went in, though, he was immediately face to face with Sherlock, whose pacing had only been halted by the body reacting to a door being swung open right in his face.

“Been put in here so as not to _worry_ the patients and staff,” he offered by way of explanation before he resumed his pacing, though it was rather more restricted than previously.

“Quite,” was all the reply Mycroft could immediately think to give.

They were silent for a moment after that.

Then the elder brother spoke. “Sherlock, would you please stop that? This is important.”

“Of course it is, yes, because otherwise why would you even bother?” the brunette sneered, face turned downwards so that his expression couldn’t be seen. Must have been something good for – “

“The concoction that Moran used to stave off his body’s rejection of the womb,” Mycroft interrupted.

That stopped Sherlock dead in his tracks and he looked up sharply at the other man, eyes full of deep suspicion and desperate hope. “If you are merely stringing me along, Mycroft, I swear that I’ll string you up in turn. “

Ignoring the threat, the other Alpha dug into his pocket and held out the small vial for Sherlock to see. “Lestrade managed to get it off of him. It’s identical to one he drank from himself earlier on, so there is very little doubt as to whether it is genuine or not.”

Sherlock stared at the vial, hand shaking as he reached out towards it, but stopped before he grabbed it. “You’ll…pass it on?”

“Of course. It should not take them too long to find out what it is made of and produce some more. It is not perfect, but…”

“It can save him, save them…” The words were whispered.

“It can. It _will_.”

For a long moment, the consulting detective just stood there, staring down at the small object of salvation. A slow smile of utter relief spread across his features.

Then he collapsed, energy zapped by the entire ordeal and the wash of relief serving as the final straw.

How Mycroft managed to grab hold of him before he hit the floor without damaging the vial he had absolutely no idea.

 

* * *

 

 

When John woke up, it was slow and the first sensation that he felt was one of numbed pain. The second was one of dizziness as he tried to look around him to get his bearings. He blinked, trying to clear it, but it wouldn’t let up and so he let himself relax back into what was obviously a hospital bed and closed his eyes.

He tried instead to take in his surroundings by means of his other senses, but once his lids had closed, his brain projected images onto them of what had happened, trying to connect the dots.

There was the image of Moran coming towards him, then crumbling to the floor. There was the sound of the gun discharging and of it tearing through flesh, the smell of Alpha surrounding him, but most of all there was the sensation of pain shooting up from his abdomen, encompassing and overwhelming.

Try as he might, though, that was all that came to mind.

Then he remembered what exactly that pain meant and both of his hands shot down to feel his stomach. There was no bandage and no other immediate indication that he had been opened up and something removed. That did not mean it wasn’t the case, however.

Dread began to fill him; that he was alive to wake up in a hospital bed was of course a good thing, but that did not mean that something hadn’t happened to his little baby or to his bond mate.

He opened his eyes and looked around quickly to see if he could gather any clues. Too quickly, it turned out, as the movement made the dizziness return with a vengeance. A frustrated, worried groan escaped him as he closed his eyes once more. He had to _know_.

He heard a door open and footsteps coming towards him, moving somewhat fast and not at all that measured. They did sound familiar, but before he had a chance to ascertain that, they stopped right by his bedside.

It couldn’t be a doctor. They would be much more likely to have announced their presence straight away if they were aware he was awake, and in any case they would walk at a much more measured pace. They had a long day of walking, after all, preserving their energy was the smart thing to do.

His rather fuzzy attempts at deductions were halted when a very familiar hand hesitantly cupped his cheek.

“John?” whispered an equally achingly familiar voice, breaking with naked, unaccustomed anxiety.

This time he let his eyelids open slowly and his eyes get time to adjust on what they were seeing.

“Sherlock?”

“John…oh, God, John… _John!”_

The Alpha buried his face in the neck of the Omega, inhaling his scent like a starving man presented with a feast. The full lips mouthed along the bond bite.

John settled a hand on the back of Sherlock’s head, his senses soothed by the other man’s actions and his mind likewise soothed by the knowledge that at least his partner was alive and apparently in one piece. That still left one rather crucial question that he urgently needed to know.

“What happened?” he asked, voice weak. “Why am I in hospital? Did I…” he paused in order to try to swallow the lump suddenly in his throat. “Did I miscarry?” he finally managed to ask.

Sherlock’s head whipped up so swiftly that his neck ought to have cracked. “No!” he exclaimed, then visibly reigned himself in. “No, you didn’t. You were so very close to it, but they managed to stop the haemorrhaging and…other things,” he said, biting his lip. “In the end they saved you both. They want to keep you here for some time while they continue to administer the drugs to you.”

“What drugs?” John asked, sounding very nonplussed.

“The drugs Moran had on him, the ones he was running out of and was the main reason he decided to harass us.” _A bit more than merely ‘harassing’ us, I should think._

Pale eyes raked over the form lying in the bed, as if he had trouble believing what he was seeing. “God, John, you have no idea…” he whispered, the rational, detached explanation that was so very Sherlock falling away as the emotions crashed over him once more. “No idea…” He buried his head back at the place where he’d bitten, seeming to gain immense comfort from the action.

“You didn’t lose me, love,” John soothed as best he could. He placed one hand on the back of his mate’s head again while the other went down to grasp a bony hand. It was immediately grabbed and squeezed tight to the point of pain. “I’m right here. We both are and we’re not going anywhere.”

He leant forward so he could press his lips against Sherlock’s forehead. “Thank you,” he said softly, lips brushing over skin. “For _everything_. I could not think of a better bond mate to have, I do not regret becoming an Omega in any way and getting our little bundle of joy is only going to be another step in this journey together.”

Sherlock didn’t answer, but John felt moistness on his skin and a full body shiver run through the body hovering over him. He smiled. “Oh, Sherlock…”

They stayed like that, connected both physically and mentally once again, until the morphine John had also been put on began to slowly drag him back down into unconsciousness.

Before he sank completely under the waves of sleep, he faintly heard the words ‘I love you, John, more than words could ever say’, and he managed to muse that it was so typical of his partner to wait with a statement like that until such a point. But then again, what else could he expect?

Everything was the way it had been and the way it should be.

 

* * *

 

 

John had to admit he felt a strange sense of déjà vu when the cab pulled up in front of 221. It was a few days after he’d woken up and he had only been let out of the hospital because Sherlock had solemnly sworn that he could look after John back at their flat. The blonde wouldn’t have believed him for a moment if it wasn’t for the way his hand had been gripped as the promise was made. That had not been for the benefit of anyone except the two of them.

There was a very significant difference between then and now, however; the distance that had been between the two of them in the vehicle on their trip back home from where they’d spent John’s Heat was nowhere to be seen.

Instead Sherlock had drawn as close to his bond mate as the seatbelts would allow, one arm wound around John’s waist so he could just about touch the side of his stomach, fingers rubbing on the skin continuously through the two-mile journey that ought to have been a doddle if not for traffic.

The trip was as silent as the other one had been, but instead of the atmosphere being awkward, the silence was companionable and comfortable. Sherlock did bolt out of the car when they stopped, leaving John to pay the cabbie, but he stopped at the front door, holding the door open.

“Sherlock, for God’s sake, I am not made of glass,” John groused as he got out of the vehicle, somewhat gingerly as the medication he was on still left him fairly woozy and uncertain on his legs. The quick, short movement by the Alpha to help was aborted due to the glare the Omega threw him.

“But you have just been through quite the ordeal,” Sherlock countered in an entirely reasonable tone of voice. “It is entirely reasonable to ask for some support when you need it.”

The doctor breathed in, ready to get angry, but he put a foot down wrongly and swayed as he fought to regained his suddenly shaken balance.

“Alright, alright, you proved your point,” he admitted as he grasped the hand held out to him. “But if you carry me or anything of the like, I am still going to punch you.”

Sherlock merely smiled broadly at that, supporting the shorter man as they went in through the front door and up the stairs to their flat.

In their absence, the living room had been cleaned of the mess SO1 had made in their storm-in, though the blood stain Moran had left on the carpet had not been scrubbed out entirely, when John went over to look. He didn’t get to linger; Sherlock herded him towards the bedroom almost immediately.

“What did I _just_ say about not being made of bloody glass?” If he wasn’t rather sapped of strength, he would have put up much more of a fight on the trip there. As it was, he was easily guided into the room and was lying on the top of the unmade bed before he knew it.

He was about to protest again, but before he could, he had an Alpha hovering on all fours above him, a strange look on his face. There was a puff of Alpha pheromones spreading into the air all of a sudden.

They did nothing to quell the need that had wracked John’s body on and off in the previous few days; his body had pumped Heat-related hormones into him in an inordinate amount and he was still feelings the effects of it.

That did not mean he wasn’t confused by the sudden gesture.

“Sherlock?” he said in a questioning tone of voice, trying to gauge the expression and failing.

He didn’t get a verbal answer. Instead cupid bow lips came down to kiss him hard. He kissed back, but was taken aback just a little bit not so much by the slight forcefulness, but more by the hint of desperation. When entrance was asked by a probing tongue, though, he did not hesitate in granting it.

Both were panting softly by the time they parted, but John still couldn’t decipher the expression on the face of his mate.

“Hey, now, what’s all this? Not that I don’t appreciate it, but what’s brought this on?” He really hoped that he would get a spoken reply.

Sherlock, still on all fours above him, hesitated. “Please, John.”

“Please what?”

“Please let me…I need to…you don’t know how…please.” With that rather broken lack of explanation, he shifted so that he knelt on the bed above the Omega. Leaning in again, he placed a kiss on the point where neck met jaw, then trailed a string of soft kisses down until he reached the collar of the shirt John had been provided when he left the hospital. At the time he had wondered why he had been given a shirt, but not a vest, but had chalked it up to the hospital having asked his bond mate and Sherlock usually bothering with vests himself.

Contrary to usual Alpha behaviour and precedence for Sherlock as well, the shirt was not yanked open forcefully by strong hands in order to get at the prize underneath as quickly as possible. Instead it was removed gently, but none the slower for that, one button opened at a time and a kiss pressed to each newly revealed piece of skin.

By the time the brunette had reached the waistband of his trousers, John was trembling lightly and biting his lip to keep from letting out any small moans. His skin had felt extra sensitive all day, he was aware of that, but he hadn’t thought it would have translated into such a reaction from only a few kisses.

More than the purely physical reaction, there was something achingly sensual in the way he was being touched that far outshone the more frantic, though undeniably extremely enjoyable touching of his Heat. The Alpha displayed an equal amount of possessiveness, but there was more of a sense of reverential love mixed in with the possessiveness in the soft glide of broad hands over his exposed skin and the press of lips.

Between kisses John could vaguely hear some words being whispered, of which the one most easily identifiable was ‘mine’. That one tended to be uttered with a growl.

It was only when a tongue glided across the inside of his thigh and the tip of his erection brushed against a cheekbone that it dawned on him his trousers and pants had been pulled all the way off of him. He had been far too preoccupied with the sensations to notice before then, but then he hadn’t paid much attention to his burgeoning erection, either. Now he could not help but notice just how good that soft cheek felt against his cock and how much it reacted to the pressure of that tongue dragging across his skin.

He stopped biting his lip so he could let out a small moan. It felt so very good, but at the same time he felt as though he was taking advantage of the situation somehow.

“Sherlock,” he said, trying to focus, which was more than a little difficult given the circumstances. “Sherlock, you really…oh, God, yes…don’t have to…mmmh…to do this.” It was really hurting his argument that he enjoying it and showing it, but he could hardly help it; the tongue had moved from the inside of his thigh to the base of his prick where it was giving very small licks all the way around.

He untangled his hands from where they had been bunched in the sheets and pushed at what he could reach of his partner in an effort to get him to stop.

For a moment it looked like he had succeeded. Sherlock withdrew his tongue, but it was only so he could turn his head up to look at John, pupils blown by lust, but there was also an expression of love and determination to be seen in them.

No words came from him, but the broad hands moved down to press the Omega’s hips into the mattress in quite a definite gesture. The hands then moved; one moved up to caress the stomach in a gentle manner while the other grabbed hold of John’s still flailing hand and brought it down onto his curls, encouraging the fingers to tangle in the softness.

“Sherlock…”

“Shush, now, my John.” The Alpha gave a sly smile.

Then he leant forward again and took the entire length of John’s cock into his mouth in one go, lips closing firmly around the base that was still slightly moist from his earlier ministrations.

John keened. There was no other word for the sound he emitted, but with the enormous jolt of pleasure shooting through his entire body combined with the shock of Sherlock doing such a thing in the first place, much less without gagging in the process, how could he be expected to react otherwise?

He expected it to ebb out even just a bit after the initial reaction, especially given that he was not in an actual Heat this time around, but as that tongue started to flutter against the prick while the cheeks began to hollow, he found that that was not the case at all. Instead the jolt became an ocean continuously letting waves of pleasure flow over and through him; the same ocean that had so utterly consumed him during his Heat.

“Oh, god…god, yes,” he panted, fingers unconsciously tugging at the dark strands of hair they were twined around. Not that the consulting detective seemed to mind at all. “That’s…fuck, that’s…nnnh…”

Sherlock had started gliding his mouth up and down on the erection, keeping the lips very firm around it while he went at agonizingly slow pace that still managed to send shutters up and down the Omega’s spine, let alone the rest of his body. All the while the tongue still moved against the skin.

Not to his very great surprise his arousal manifested itself in more than just his cock, but it was still a strange sensation to feel the wetness trickle out of his hole and the accompanying emptiness growing inside of him that positively begged to be filled, no Heat notwithstanding.

What was even stranger was the fact that although Sherlock must clearly have been able to smell the pheromone cocktail that emanated from John’s entrance, he seemed in no particular hurry to shift his attention towards the area. The area that would normally be the sole focus of attention for an Alpha having sex with an Omega, the one that the brunette had spent a long time on previously.

John’s train of thought was suddenly derailed to the point of crashing again. Only the crown was engulfed in wet heat at that point, but the incredible suction was still there and a broad hand was emulating the same maddeningly, deliciously slow pace. What took the absolute biscuit, though, was the motions the tongue was doing, in particular when it occasionally dipped down into the slit; it was all he could do not to buck his hips into that absolutely wonderful heat and tightness.

He did need some sort of outlet for the sensations running through him, however, and so he gave voice to it. “Oh…fucking hell, Sherlock, where did you…oh, fuck, yes, _just_ like that, just keep going. More, please, don’t stop…ah!”

The last noise, which was very close to a whine, was due to his partner pulling off entirely, not even the hand staying. His hips did buck up then, quite forcefully at that. He was so very close – if only the Alpha would keep going or push a finger inside or preferably sheet himself inside John’s at that point throbbing passage!

“Sherlock, please!” he groaned. His hands were still tangled in dark curls, but they hadn’t resorted to pressing that head back down, who knew how.

“You are simply exquisite, my John,” Sherlock said, his baritone voice almost subsonic in its lower tone as he drank in the man underneath him. “God, just look at you. I ought to have a photograph taken of you just like this, have it framed and hung over the mantelpiece. But then others would get to see just how lovely you are and this…” he let a hand trail lovingly and decidedly possessively down over the skin stretched out before him, from the bond bite all the way down to just above his knee, “this is not for anyone’s eyes but mine from now on. No one else is going to see just how the muscles of your thighs and stomach twitch and tremble from arousal and anticipation, even now, or how tussled your hair gets from your head thrashing from side to side as you lose yourself to pleasure.”

He let the tips of his fingers flutter against the erection and it twitched violently while its owner moaned. Then he withdrew them. “No one else will get to hear the gorgeous noises that you try to suppress but can’t quite manage to. The only one who knows how amazing your scent is close up will be me, especially when it’s enhanced by arousal, and no one else will sample the taste of you. It is _all_ **_mine_**!”

A hint of his Alpha nature made itself be known by what could only be described as a smile so smug as to surpass the cat that got the cream, the mouse as well as the canary.

John made an odd noise trapped between a growl and a whine. It was quite frankly very erotic to have his Alpha declare such things, he had to admit that and so did his dick, but unfortunately it was only serving to wind him up tighter. If Sherlock would not do anything but tease him without following through, he would have to do something about it himself.

As soon as one of his hands moved even slightly within reach of the cock, however, it was grabbed and pushed above his head, then held there. He gave a small growl and tried a different tact; the other hand did not make its way towards his crotch, but instead snaked its way down towards his entrance, hoping that stimulating that area for even a short amount of time would be enough to send him over the edge. He had been kept on edge by other lovers before, and he had even enjoyed it at the time, but he was still very unaccustomed to the desperation that was apparently integral to sex for an Omega.

Unluckily for him, his mate was Sherlock Holmes, who was capable of detecting minute details off of strangers with only a glance. Spotting John’s hand moving was a doddle in comparison.

When his other hand was grabbed, though, just having reached the twitching rim of his hole, it was not immediately pushed up to join the first one. Before that, the two fingers that were covered in a surprising amount of slick were pulled into that devil mouth and suckled.

“Fuck!” John shouted. He tried to pull his hand back, without much luck. “God, Sherlock, you bloody tease! You can’t just leave me hanging like this after such a fucking amazing...Please!” He bucked his hips again.

Only when the digits were completely devoid of slick did Sherlock release them from his mouth. His pupils, which had already been dominating the pale eyes, had now taken them over completely and his tongue licked around his lips for any missed bits. A pleased rumble reverberated through him and the Alpha pheromones coming off of him intensified.

“Delectable,” came the baritone voice as Sherlock let the hand fall down besides its owner, who knew far better than to try to move them again.

“ _Sherlock!_ ” John shouted in utter frustration.

It turned into a choked noise of pleasure when one hand closed around the base of his cock, firm as it moved up and down incrementally while the other went down to gently cup his balls.

“Yes…!” he moaned. Despite the pause, it did not take long at all for him to be right back at the edge.

He had only just mentally prepared himself to be held at that edge for an extended amount of time, floating on the pleasure and anticipation, when the part of his dick that wasn’t being touched at all was once more engulfed in that tight, wet heat.

Add to that just the barest hint of teeth around the crown and that was it. His orgasm shot through him with a force that shocked him and left him roaring and bucking despite his best efforts not to do so. Not that Sherlock seemed to mind; he kept his mouth tightly sealed around the shaft, swallowing the shots of semen as they came.

The movements that came with the swallows only prolonged the shudders consuming the blonde. Everything was white-hot pleasure.

Finally, after what to John seemed like absolute ages, the shudders subsided and the Alpha pulled off of his spent cock, once again licking his lips as the cat that got the cream.

“God…” John breathed when he had a voice that worked at least somewhat again. “Fuck, that was so…I did not expect… _that._ ”

After he had regained his breath and something at least resembling his senses, his nose and brain piped up to remind him that he wasn’t the only one with needs.

Struggling a bit to get his wobbly limbs to cooperate, he rose onto his elbows, ignoring the wetness of the part of the sheets under his butt, then shakily reached out for his bond mate. Again his hand was grabbed and deflected from its intended target.

“At least allow me to reciprocate, you twat,” John said, fondly exasperated in the way that only Sherlock could bring out.

What he got for his troubles was a soft smile. “Not this time,” the brunette said with a small shake of his head. One of his hands had found its way down to his crotch, had opened the tailored trousers and was stroking the organ there hard and fast.

It didn’t take long for him to climax, eyes closed and a deep, guttural groan escaping him as the Omega watched.

The pale eyes shot open again when his head was pulled forward and thin lips pressed determinedly against his own. He moaned again and opened his mouth as quickly as possible, their tongues battling for dominance.

When they parted, both were grinning like idiots.

“So…any chance you’re going to tell me what that was all about?” John eventually asked. “Also, why were you so adamant not to touch my entrance? Not that I mind, obviously, but I thought that for Alphas that would be the main attraction, as it were. Pheromones being strongest in that area, knowing that you’re the only one to touch that part and so on.”

“Do try and exercise that brain of yours. It has not been very long since you stopped bleeding. Any excessive activity down there might cause you to bleed again, which is frankly unacceptable.” The words ‘ _and it might still upset the balance that is keeping the womb and the baby stable’_ hung in the air afterwards.

“Call me silly if you like, but if that was what you’re worried about, wouldn’t it be better to just not have sex at all?” Not that John was all too sure he wouldn’t have been driven slightly barmy if he hadn’t been allowed to relieve some of the sexual tension he’d been suffering from for the last few days, if he had to be honest.

Sherlock merely raised his eyebrows at that. Then he rose up off the bed so he could shed the clothes he was wearing as well as divest the doctor of the rest of his. Satisfied that they were both suitably unclothed, he crawled back onto the bed, dragging with him the duvet from where it lay crumpled at the foot of the bed. John was gently pushed and pulled at until he was no longer lying in any sort of damp spot and then the duvet was pulled over them both.

It could still not be any later than late afternoon, at most, and they had not had dinner. They had not even unpacked the few things they’d brought back from the hospital. There were still plenty of things that needed sorting, chief among them being the aftermath of Moran and what was needed to bear their little son to term without further incident. It would be the sensible thing to consider what to do next sooner rather than later.

But as they lay there, on their sides underneath the duvet, John tucked into the spoon Sherlock had made of his own body, the fingers of one hand buried in the fine, blonde hair on the back of the Omega’s head and the ones on the other running a soft trail from tummy to hip and back, cupid bow lips pressed against a forehead, there was nothing in the world that could make John move from that spot.

It was the one place he should be right at that moment in time and the only place he wanted to be.

With his family.

Loved.

 

* * *

 

**_Epilogue_ **

 

“Sherlock, would you quit fussing? I am perfectly capable of doing this.”

“I have never doubted your skills,” the Alpha countered calmly. “However, that does not change the fact that you have only just left the hospital after a trying ordeal and – “

“A caesarean section is not a bloody ordeal!” Despite it all, John couldn’t help laughing. Possibly it was because of the sight before him; a tall, imposing Alpha with an overly cool coat and frustratingly messy yet stylish hair laden down with a rather large changing bag over one shoulder, a baby car carrier in one hand and a bag bursting at the seams with a frankly ludicrous amount of gifts, soft toys chief among them. It was a sight he would never have thought he’d see in his life and he cherished it.

The recipient of the gifts was not particularly overwhelmed with them, but that was hardly surprising. Bundled in a crocheted blanket, made by Mrs. Hudson in soft, warm colours with small bees on it, and deeply asleep with a belly full of milk, he was nestled in John’s arms very carefully, tiny little hands twitching slightly. He looked to not have a care in the world.

It was in no way indicative of the difficulties they had had in actually bringing him _into_ said world, but now, as they stood there in front of their home, the sleek, black car they had just gotten out of pulling out into traffic, neither of them could say that they minded.

“Perhaps not on its own,” Sherlock replied, quiet and soft, the rest of the sentence left to hand in the air.

Laden though he was, he carefully leant forward and brought his head down to look at the small face of their son, noting his own cupid bow lips and John’s snub nose as well as the tiny amount of dark hair just visible beneath the knitted hat.

Gingerly, he pressed his lips against the forehead. The child stayed firmly asleep.

When their eyes met, John noted that Sherlock’s pale ones were glistening with unshed tears. Again.

“Who would have expected you to have become such a big softie just because you managed to pass on your genes?” the Omega teased gently, his own eyes also brimming with love and tears.

They stood there in silence for a while, just looking down at their miracle, who was finally there with them after nine strenuous months. Words were inadequate to describe the feelings running through them.

The moment was broken when the baby sneezed hard and opened his eyes in shock at what had just happened.

They laughed and went inside, up the stairs and into their flat, where they had to stop dead.

Every surface in the living room had something baby related on it and bunting crisscrossed the ceiling several times, spelling out ‘Congratulations! Welcome baby!’ in bright blue colours.

John laughed again while Sherlock frowned.

“They could at least have found something a little less generic than that!” he grumbled.

Nevertheless, when he had put down what he was carrying, he went over to inspect the rather large, wooden baby cot that had somehow been found room for in the already somewhat crowded area. A smile slowly replaced the frown when he spotted the white, fluffy rabbit soft toy swaddled in the smaller, hooded blanket that John had brought home and which had been the an often companion for the brunette in the intervening months, mostly draped across his shoulder during an experiment or clutched in one hand while thinking.

A tag was attached to a ribbon tied around its neck. It said _‘To my nephew, Hamish. May you explore the wilderness of imagination together to your heart’s content’._

When John came over, gently rocking the little one as he went, he smiled as he read it. “Well, _he_ is at least not generic, you have to give him that.”

“No, he instead chooses to be as domineering as he was as a child.”

“He’s your older brother, what do you expect? Anyway, I don’t really see how him stating his name preference is being domineering.”

“Our son isn’t going to be called _Hamish_.” The Alpha’s nose scrunched up in disgust.

John would have elbowed his partner if not for the bundle in his arms. “Oi! I’ll not have my middle name insulted, here, thank you very much.” He shifted the weight and huffed. “As if the one you came up with was in any way better.”

The Alpha opened his mouth to argue, but was interrupted by a series of little, huffing whines. Immediately his attention was diverted back towards his son. To try and ease the distress, he bent down again to press lips against the forehead, letting the baby inhale his Alpha scent.

It worked; almost immediately the whining subsided into snuffling and then silence. One thing that had happened was that one little hand had opened up to search for and grab hold of one of the Omega’s fingers.

“Fine example of how instincts are important in this business, isn’t it?” John commented, nothing but wry humour in his voice. He had learned to accept that there were instincts he didn’t have and some that he had which he was still not in tune with, as it were. Well, to a certain degree, at least.

Sherlock merely smiled and drew his little family in close. “Says the one who’s been soothing him all the way home just by rocking him and cooing, and whose fingers he grabs for at every possible opportunity.”

He planted a kiss on John’s forehead as well, soft and tender.

“I do hate repeating myself, but I’ll make an exception on this case, on the condition that you get it into your thick skull this time. You are not an Omega but neither are you a Beta. You are John Hamish Watson-Holmes, my bond mate and the father of our son and I could not have asked for a better person to be by my side, regardless of your secondary gender.”

John smiled broadly at that, heart warmed to incandescence. “Thank you,” was all he said. It was all that needed to be said.

They stood together, enjoying the moment and ready to embrace whatever the future might hold for them.

It would definitely not be boring, that much was for certain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There, all done, epilogue and all. I have had a blast writing this and I hope you've enjoyed the journey even half as much as I have. I'm almost sad to end it, since I'm going to miss it. Oh, well. :)
> 
> Again, I hope this has been an at least fairly satisfactory end to the story and if there's any questions, feel free to let me know. Hopefully the sex scene here at the end is alright as well. I certainly enjoyed writing it. ^^
> 
> Feedback would, of course, be lovely :3

**Author's Note:**

> I have been rather worried that I've put too much exposition into the first chapter or that people will find the whole womb-thing unbelievable, but I do hope not. :)
> 
> If the criticism is constructive, feedback is dearly loved and treasured :)


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